Advice for small wireless and broadband operators who want to tap AI

A panel at the Competitive Carriers Association show spoke to small, regional wireless carriers about their use of automation and AI, and perhaps the most interesting question was: “If you had one piece of advice to give to a competitive carrier just starting on their automation journey, what would that be?” Prajith Dhanapalan is head of Solutions and Private Networks at Xius, a company that provides wireless core technology. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that he said the best way to rise to higher levels of automation is to introduce another core to their wireless network in order to experiment with automation of their business use cases. “We can put a second core, and they can do a lot experiments,” said Dhanapalan. But Ahmed Abdelaziz, VP of Automation and Network Transformation at Rakuten Symphony, recommended that small operators “not fall to peer pressure.”