Not long ago, it would have seemed strange to suggest that communication service providers (CSPs) should model their operations on an e-commerce company like Amazon. At first glance the industries appear different, yet today’s customers expect every company to deliver an experience as seamless and efficient as Amazon’s.
With the arrival of 5G and the automation it enables, CSPs can finally meet those expectations. Put simply, CSPs must integrate automation throughout their operations and become truly automation-native.
Becoming “automation-native”
Many industries are reaching the limits of how much additional consumer value they can generate under current models. The next wave of digital opportunity lies in boosting productivity and innovation for industries and enterprises. Capturing that opportunity requires a new operational control point—one that delivers business agility, supports novel business models, and fosters an automation-native culture.
Rather than focusing solely on connectivity, CSPs can pursue ecosystem-led value propositions made possible by 5G. The operational control point will be central to enabling those ecosystems.
Legacy open-loop operational systems are static and ill-suited to this future. Operating in “digital time”—the real-time, on-demand nature of modern business—calls for intelligent, closed-loop processes that perform end-to-end lifecycle management of digital services across software-driven networks.
Limitless applications
To enable dynamic innovation, companies must combine orchestration and assurance and remove artificial boundaries in service design, data models, and network topology. This transformation will happen incrementally, but it will ultimately allow CSPs to create end-to-end service lifecycle processes capable of delivering far more sophisticated services than today’s infrastructure supports.
For example, a CSP could allocate a dedicated 5G network slice to a gaming company, allowing the provider to offer online games with guaranteed low latency and high availability to its subscribers. The CSP’s automated operations would monitor slice performance and ensure service-level agreements (SLAs) are met—automatically optimizing resources when changes are needed.
On the industrial front, a CSP might dedicate portions of its network to a robotics firm that automates manufacturing processes, using dynamic operational capabilities to ensure the platform performs reliably in the field.
Even heavily saturated consumer markets present opportunities. If the connected-home vision becomes widespread, CSPs will have new automation-driven services to offer homeowners and device manufacturers alike.
Networks of the future
Embedding automation into operations and unlocking dynamic innovation requires rethinking network architectures and digital platforms.
Automation-native operations demand a network architecture that integrates solutions, software, and services to support innovative business models—not only for CSPs but also for third-party enterprises that can incorporate network capabilities into their own offerings. A zero-touch network with end-to-end service automation and autonomous, programmable networking represents the future of dynamic operations enabled by 5G.