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This Catalyst proof of concept project demonstrates how to use 5G network slicing to assure services such as healthcare during the Covid-19 pandemic. The project looks into new technology and monetization avenues.
5G slicing and AI can assure healthcare during a pandemic
There are important, novel elements to this Catalyst proof of concept, which shows how to use 5G network slicing to assure services such as healthcare during the Covid-19 pandemic. As well as trying out the new technology, the project – called AI driven business assurance for 5G – is also looking at how to monetize it. The team demonstrated their project during the TM Forum Catalyst Digital Showcase in July 2020.
“There is no network slicing yet in the commercial world, so experimentation is important,” says Dr. Gadi Solotorevsky, Chief Evangelist – cVidya, Amdocs, a participant in the project.
AI’s ability to complement business assurance in reducing risk and growing revenue has been proven in previous phases of this project, but it relied on offline customer data. Here that data is combined with real-time network information, which allows it to be used predictively, not just reactively. Hence business assurance is not simply to assure service but to provide information about the customer that will influence the network’s automated response to the situation. What was an internal function can now be used as an outward-facing tool, feeding a business perspective into real-time, dynamic network decisions. The key to combining these sets of data and applying AI to them is using a common data model. The project champions are BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange and T-Mobile Netherlands, which are joined by participants Amdocs, FICO, IBM, Latro Services, OmniSci, Optare Solutions, SI-TECH and Tata Consultancy Services. The team will leverage TM Forum’s Analytics Big Data Repository to build that common data model while interoperability between the different systems holding the data will be achieved using Open APIs.
The wide applicability of this project’s approach was underlined by a drastic change of circumstances prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The setting at the start of the year was to look at enabling a digital service provider to optimize 5G customers’ experience at a mass event. This involves pinpointing problems and fixing them in real time, in the best way for that set of circumstances. While the team is demonstrating this use case, a healthcare-focused one has been added. The aspects of customer experience covered in this Catalyst project are revenue assurance, plus credit, churn and fraud management to provide effective protection to digital business in the 5G ecosystem. As Solotorevsky points out, “Measuring everyone’s quality of experience, in real time, for 60,000 attendees is a very hard thing to do. What do you measure, for whom and when?” This Catalyst will provide some answers. It might be that the operator decides to give priority to a high-value customer, deemed to be in danger of churning in the next week, over someone who is unlikely to pay their next bill. Machine learning-based analysis of the customer’s situation informs the network’s response to fixing the problem or addressing an issue before it impacts customers. The more machine learning is applied, the more accurate and useful its analyses become.
The Covid-19 pandemic prompted another use case demonstrating telehealth. During the crisis, best practice has been to keep sick people at home if at all possible and monitor various indicators carefully, depending on their condition.
“You have to have excellent, totally reliable communications for this that cannot be disrupted by the kids upstairs watching Netflix,” Solotorevsky notes. “The system has to know that if the quality of connectivity is threatened, then the quality of the Netflix goes, not the healthcare link.”
Using network slicing, the guaranteed bandwidth is provided through a dedicated virtual link as part of the healthcare package with a duration of two weeks, for instance. That slice has to be verified and guaranteed, then monitored to ensure it meets the agreed criteria all that time. Monetizing 5G is a hugely important issue for telecoms industry. Here the premise is that once the crisis recedes and the government or insurance company is no longer paying for the healthcare monitoring, there is an opportunity to upsell that service to the patient. The patient may well feel it is good value for the peace of mind, and the terms on which the extended service is offered can be informed by the data held about that person. Certainly, it seems likely that the value we place on staying well is likely to change in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.
