Telcos race to a transition from ‘stupid pipes’ to technological players with AI-O-disabled
Ryu Young-Sang, Executive Director of South Korean Telecommunication Giganta SK Telecom, told CNBC that AI helps telecommunications companies to improve efficiency in their networks.
MANUARE Quintero | AFP | Getty Images
Barcelona – Global telecommunications companies talk about progress in key technologies such as artificial intelligence because they look like they can exceed the “stupid pipes” behind the internet.
At a conference of Mobile World Congress Technology Technology in Barcelona, executives of several telecommunications companies described that they accumulated money into new technological innovations, including AI, next generations of 5G and 6G, satellite internet and even smart cities.
Makoto Takahashi, President and Executive Director of Japanese Telecommunication Gigant KddiDetailed plans to build a smart city called Takanawa Gateway City in Tokyo, as well as introduction of satellite internet connectivity with a direct-stanica in partnership with Elon Musk Starlink Venture.
Ralph Mupita, Executive Director of the largest African Mobile Mobile Network Operator, also went on stage to share that the company has reached significant steps to become a company that offers even wireless connectivity and fintech services such as payments, e-trains, insurance, loans and remittances.
“Telco Business has served us well. He has been repeating it since then. But the future actually refers to the future of the platform,” Mupita said in his main interview, adding that the company had aggressively invested in other areas such as the current of media and financial services.
From ‘stupid pipes’ to ‘Techcos’
Some Lingo who has gathered couple in the Telco industry in the last few years is The term “techco”, the portmanteau of the word “telco” and “technology”.
The term refers to the idea of a Telco company, which acts more like a technological company that invests in top technology and offers digital services to consumers to help them make money from significant capital expenditures they have assigned to upgrade wireless networks.
Two decades, technological giants like Target,, Google,, Amazon,, Apple,, Microsoft and Netflix They have flourished in a world where content can be delivered directly to people devices, consumers can communicate with each other unnoticed, and data can be stored or emitted through the Internet without the need for their own bulky infrastructure – all thanks to innovations such as the Internet, smartphones and clouds.
However, these innovations have disrupted the telecommunication companies business models, to the point where the players who are only inherited to install cables and other network infrastructure are now often perceived as they allow for Internet connectivity.
It is a dilemma that earned Telco brands a pejorative term “stupid pipes”.
“I remember early in the industry, even before the mobile internet, when the SMS was once a killer application,” said the MWC speech, Hatem Dowidar, the CEO of the State Telecommunications Company E &. “We used to bring revenues from messages. We used to have revenue from voice.”
“All of this has disrupted overwhelming players over the years, to such an extent that a lot of Telcos around the world is reduced to a pipe pipe that only get data on the network,” Dowidar added. “And the competition does not remain calm. They have proportions, have an investment and disturb more.”
Telcos hug Ai
Ryu Young-Sang, Executive Director SK Telecomsaid CNBC Arjun Kharpal that the South Korean telecommunications giant looked at AI technology to help it improve the effectiveness of its wireless network -something consistently exposed to numerous Telco operators on MWC.
“There are two aspects for Telcos. One is as a user, the other is as a supplier,” Young-Sang said. “As a user, you are a telco job, you can improve your network efficiency, marketing and user service using AI technology. You can improve your own surgery.”
“The second aspect is that AI can be an engine for growth, a new business opportunity for Telcos,” he added. Data centers, facilities offering a computer capacity needed to launch generative AI applications like Chatgpt, are another key area where telecommunications like SK Telecom can play a key role, said Young-Sang.
In the western world, a race for the construction of data centers is that mostly dominated by a cloud computing giants – or “hyperscalers” – like Amazon, Microsoft and Google. However, SK Telecom aggressively expands its data centers that are prepared to globally, said the company’s executive director.
Can telcos make up for technology?
For many telecommunications industry analysts, telcos chattering who want to transform into technological players are not brand new – companies in the industry have long been aware of their importance in communications, and the media has been reduced.
Kester Mann, Consumer Director and Connecting at the CCS Insight Research Company, told the CNBC that, although he is not a great fan of the “Techco” term, this is something that the industry continues to focus and collect the pace in the context of AI BUM.
“Ai can affect so many areas … And obviously this is played in that trend around Telco to Techco’s operator who position themselves more than the connecting providers,” Mann said.
The so -called “autonomous network” or networks that can be managed and fixed with limited human control is an area that quickly receives attraction in the industry, according to Nika Willetts, the TM Forum Executive Director of the TM Forum in the industry.
“Autonomous networks are a movement that we see an incredibly fast transition from the theory to reality, thanks to the progress in the AI in combination with the new level of ambition and action throughout the industry,” Willetts said.
This technology “can unlock a steady change in operational and capital efficiency, improve eBitda and free cash flows, as well as unlocking new revenue opportunities and much needed improvements in the user’s experience,” he added.
Jeeta Patel, Chief Director of the IT Detachying Products CiscoHe said he saw that telecommunications play a vital role because AI increases demand for network traffic and the width of the belt.
“The reality is as follows: the appetite for the width of the network width will exponentially increase with AI,” Patel told CNBC. “Today, 100% of our workforce is human. Tomorrow you will increase this by AI agents, robots, humanoids, lots of marginal devices.”
“These agents will be faster and will need more network traffic and permeability,” he added. “I think service providers play a significant role.
