What are the biggest challenges facing telecoms right now?
Glotels winners share their insights on the industry
Each year the Glotel Awards honours the telecoms pioneers striving to solve industry issues with innovative solutions.
We asked a few of our 2023 Glotel Awards winners to share their views on the current obstacles within telecoms – and how the industry can ultimately overcome them.
From AI and new security threats to tech talent droughts, the award-winning teams from ZTE, Vodafone, Huawei, and more, share their opinions on the future of the industry – and the best paths to progress.
Category: Advancing Artificial Intelligence
Winner: ZTE - ZTE RAN Composer, shaping 5G with native-AI
ZTE: “The biggest challenge facing the telecoms sector is the rapid pace of technological advancements coupled with the increasing demand for differentiated SLA requirement, like higher bandwidth, lower latency, and more reliable connectivity. This is compounded by the challenge of network monetisation to keep up with evolving standards, such as the shift from 4G to 5G and 5G-A, while increasing revenue.
To overcome this, the industry must invest in continuous research and development, and embrace innovative technologies such as AI and machine learning (ML). Collaboration among industry players, regulatory bodies, and technology partners is also crucial to develop standardised solutions and implement best practices that ensure seamless integration and interoperability.”
Category: 5G Innovation of the Year
Winner: Capgemini and Blueplanet - Multi-vendor Disaggregated 5G Network Slicing Solution
Capgemini Engineering: “The need for continuous infrastructure upgrades, particularly with the rollout of 5G networks, is a primary challenge for the telecoms sector right now. This involves significant investment in new technologies, ensuring interoperability among diverse systems, and managing the increased complexity of network architecture.
Overcoming this challenge requires a multi-faceted approach:
Investment in innovation – continuous investment in R&D to develop scalable and flexible solutions.
Strategic partnerships – collaborating with technology providers, governments, and industry stakeholders to share costs and expertise.
Talent development – investing in workforce skills to manage and innovate new technologies.
Standardisation – promoting global standards to ensure seamless integration and operation across different networks and devices.”
Category: Connecting the Unconnected
Winner: BICS - BICS' 2023 partnerships to close the digital divide
BICS: “While it’s been said a lot, the demand for tech talent among telcos is absolutely critical. CSPs don’t have enough human resources to do everything they want to do. Essentially, operators have two main responsibilities: investing in readying new technologies – such as AI capabilities, 5G and 6G – and maintaining legacy services. For a lot of telcos, doing both today is extremely difficult. A resulting danger from focusing too much on new technology integration is that you accidentally widen the digital divide with gaps in service quality and fraud protection.
In light of that tech talent deficiency, the industry has to free up some headspace and resources for the operators that are running research and development projects and investing in newer technologies. One way to do that is to outsource management of international calls and messages that run on legacy technologies. At BICS, we already do some of this ourselves with several partners, and it’s just one of many ways to help operators focus on more forward-thinking strategies.”
Category: IoT Initiative of the Year
Winner: Vodafone and Celfocus - STEP: Breaking Barriers, Saving Lives - Unleashing Innovation for Enhanced Road Safety
Vodafone: “The integration and standardisation of connected vehicle technologies across different regions and systems is a major obstacle in our sector. Resolving this requires a concerted effort to establish open industry standards and foster collaboration among various stakeholders, including governments, private companies, and regulatory bodies. By promoting compatibility and seamless data exchange, we can ensure that connected vehicle solutions like STEP can operate effectively and consistently across different environments, ultimately improving road safety and efficiency.”
Category: Fixed Network Evolution
Winner: Nokia - stc and Nokia revolutionise fixed networks for superior service quality
Nokia: “How to maintain the best customer experience while managing the increasing complexity and cost of networks is a major question for the telecoms industry. It will require real-time insights and proactive issue resolution – something we tackled in our work with stc. By leveraging predictive analytics and automation, we can identify and address potential issues before they impact users, thereby ensuring a seamless and superior customer experience.”
Category: Telecoms Excellence
Winner: China Mobile Communications Corporation and Huawei - China Mobile CRM Agile delivery and intelligent O&M transformation project
Huawei: “The challenges for telecoms are mainly in two areas. Firstly, the B2C market is becoming saturated, and operational complexity is continuously increasing. How can carriers continue to improve operational efficiency and quality?
Secondly, with the rise of B2B business, how can carriers seize the opportunity and extend the market space when faced with new customers, new products, new business models, and new competitive relationships?
By combining specific use cases and actively exploring and practicing cutting-edge technologies such as cloud-native, AI and ML, we can unleash the potential of technologies and help carriers achieve intelligent transformation based on real user cases.”
Category: Security Solution of the Year
Winner: SK Telecom - SK Telecom’s Advanced AI-based Voice Phishing Bait Detection Solution
SK Telecom: “The primary hurdle for our sector is the protracted process of integrating AI-based technologies into existing network infrastructures. This integration is complex due to the need for seamless interoperability and the high standards of reliability and security required in telecoms.
To overcome this, we are adopting MLOps (Machine Learning Operations) to streamline the deployment and management of ML models. Additionally, we are developing a unified Threat Intelligence environment to consolidate and analyse data from various sources. This approach will enable us to quickly adapt to technological changes and enhance our network's resilience against emerging threats.”