A week in telecoms: GenAI support tools, Vodafone Idea’s $3.6bn vendor deal, and 5G in Vietnam.

AWS ties with BT and TM Forum on GenAI tools

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is supporting generative AI tools that were separately launched by BT and TM Forum this week.

TM Forum unveiled Generative AI Maturity Interactive Tool (GAMIT), which is designed to help CSPs transition from basic GenAI applications to fully embedded GenAI capabilities.

At the same time, BT Group’s Digital Unit has announced the launch of an internal platform to help the company tap into large language models (LLMs) from providers such as Anthropic, Meta, Claude, Cohere, and Amazon.

TM Forum’s GAMIT draws on anonymized, aggregated data from in-depth surveys conducted with more than 200 AI decision-makers at CSPs worldwide. It aims to enable CSPs to benchmark their generative AI maturity against regional peers and global leaders, identify priority use cases and rapidly move from development through to production at scale.

BT’s GenAI Gateway, meanwhile, was built in collaboration with AWS using Amazon Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker and AWS Professional Services capabilities, and provides access to a range of natural-language processing and LLMs, “a critical tool BT Group will use as it embeds AI into the way it runs the business,” the operator said.

Current beta use cases include a trial at Openreach, summarizing engineering notes on Ethernet and full fibre jobs, helping to simplify processes and boost productivity for its teams and communications provider customers. BT said a second use case, supporting contract analysis for the Group’s Business, legal and procurement teams, is also live.

“Gen AI Gateway is one of the several key enablers we are deploying to enable BT Group as an AI-enabled enterprise, and we will also use our ‘data fabric’ data management platform to help enforce governing policies for how data can be used, as well as to manage access control and data sovereignty restrictions,” BT said.

Explaining the reasons behind its latest move, BT said ad-hoc use of LLMs is not well suited to large-scale use, noting that cost control, security and privacy need more careful management. It added that LLM performance also needs to be monitored, for unexpected errors, such as “hallucinations” and model decay over time, where LLMs stop behaving as expected.

Another benefit of the GenAI Gateway is that it also gives BT Group protection against ‘lock-in’ to any given LLM if any other issues emerge. “The use of GenAI Gateway platform will encourage BT Group engineers to use the right model for the right use case, at the right price, as it supports per-use case budget tracking,” BT said.

Meanwhile, other telco groups are already working on LLMs that are built for their needs from the ground up. During DTW24-Ignite, the five telcos behind the Global Telecom AI Alliance (GTAA) – SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, e& Group, Singtel and Softbank – took the stage with their hyperscaler partners at to spell out their business vision for telco-specific LLMs.

India’s Vi agrees $3.6bn deal with network vendors

Financially challenged Indian operator Vodafone Idea (Vi) has undertaken yet another major transaction to shore up its investments by signing a £3.6 billion deal with mobile network manufacturers Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung to supply network equipment over a period of three years.

The operator said the deal “marks the first step towards the rollout of the company’s transformative three-year capex plan of $6.6 billion (550 billion rupees).” Notably, the transaction ushers in Samsung as a new network partner for Vi.

“The capex program is directed towards expanding the 4G population coverage from 1.03 billion to 1.2 billion, launching 5G in key markets and capacity expansion in line with data growth,” Vi added.

Supplies under the new contract will start arriving in the coming quarter, it said, noting that its top priority remains to expand 4G coverage.

As noted by Reuters, Vi, formed by a merger between the Indian arm of Vodafone Group and Aditya Birla Group’s Idea Cellular in 2018, has posted a loss in every quarter as it lost market share to larger rivals Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.

The news agency added that this year the operator has sold shares to institutional investors, raised funds through India’s largest-ever follow-on public offer and is also in talks with lenders as part of its plans to raise around $5 billion to roll out 5G network service, expand 4G coverage and regain market share.

Akshaya Moondra, CEO of Vodafone Idea, said the operator has “kickstarted the investment cycle. We are on our journey of VIL 2.0 and from hereon, VIL will stage a smart turnaround to effectively participate in the industry growth opportunities.”

He added: “Nokia and Ericsson have been our partners since our inception and this marks another milestone in that continuing partnership. We are pleased to start our new partnership with Samsung. We look forward to work closely with all our partners as we move into the 5G era.”

Vietnam gears up for 5G, and looks ahead to 6G

5G services are on course for launch in Vietnam, according to Nokia, which has just signed a “major new deal with Viettel Group” to deploy 5G equipment for the first time nationwide.

The Finnish vendor said the project will cover 22 provinces across the country and support Viettel’s strategy of advancing 5G infrastructure and digital transformation. The project will also see Nokia modernize Viettel’s 4G infrastructure.

Deployment will begin this year, and Nokia noted that the 5G products have also been locally manufactured.

Under the deal, Nokia will supply equipment from its 5G AirScale portfolio covering 2,500 sites. This includes Nokia’s next-generation AirScale baseband solutions, massive MIMO radios, and remote radio head products, supported by its ReefShark System-on-Chip technology.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) issued 5G licenses to Viettel and VNPT in April 2024. The two operators have committed to deploying a network and providing services no later than one year after receiving the licenses, and investing in 3,000 stations after two years.

The 5G service will be launched first in urban parts of provinces and cities, then expanded to the remaining areas.

Meanwhile, Vietnam is already looking ahead to the next evolution of mobile technology, recently establishing a 6G Development Group to evaluate, test, and promote the research and development of 6G mobile technology.

Pham Duc Long, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications, said Vietnam’s goal is to keep pace with the world in 6G research, production, and deployment.

“Vietnam will research and contribute to global 6G standards. The Ministry of Information and Communications and businesses will collaborate to research and promote this technology. The state will invest in laboratories for businesses to research and produce 6G equipment. Without these labs, it would be difficult to advance 6G research. In addition to collaborating domestically with experts, universities, and research institutes on 6G, Vietnam will also invite foreign experts to contribute to our 6G research,” Long said.

Vietnam plans to sunset 2G services in October and transition customers to 4G. In September, it said there were about 3.4 million 2G-only subscribers remaining. It also intends to decommission 3G networks by 2028 to support 4G and 5G services.

Vodafone widens Intelsat collaboration for remote connectivity support

Vodafone is expanding its partnership with Intelsat to bring satellite communication to organizations operating in hard-to-reach areas or disaster zones.

The telecoms operator is adding Intelsat’s Flex portfolio to its satellite connectivity product range aimed at both private and public sectors globally.

Vodafone said is providing two types of satellite connectivity products: communications-on-the-move (COTM) using a vehicle-mounted antenna; and communications-on-the-pause (COTP) connectivity comprising a compact satellite terminal. The services are based on Intelsat’s network of geostationary earth-orbit (GEO) satellites.

Intelsat’s service will also be used to support Vodafone’s charitable arm, Vodafone Foundation, with its connected health and education initiatives across Europe and Africa. Vodafone noted that the foundation is also on standby to offer help to NGOs, governments and relief agencies in their response to environmental and humanitarian disaster situations.

Marika Auramo, CEO of Vodafone Business, said: “Vodafone’s agreement with Intelsat adds depth and breadth to our global network. With these new services, we can provide additional connectivity and resilience to customers in some of the hardest to reach places, whether they’re on the move, or need to quickly establish communications following an environmental or humanitarian disaster.”

The expansion of the partnership further underscores the increasingly symbiotic relationship between telcos and satcos as they seek to exploit each other’s networks, also underpinned by technology enshrined in 3GPP 5G non-terrestrial networks (NTN) standards.

Vodafone also backs AST SpaceMobile with the aim of enabling direct-to-device mobile calls from space. Other operators such as T-Mobile USA are working with SpaceX-owned Starlink on a similar service.

Singtel and Ericsson tie on 5G automated network allocation tech

Singtel proclaimed itself as the first in the world to commercially deploy a new 5G capability from Ericsson, called Automated Radio Resource Partitioning (ARRP).

According to the partners, unlike previous iterations of network slicing that require customers to pre-define their network needs, the new software solution intelligently allocates network resources to meet varying workloads of enterprises and consumer applications.

“ARRP also simplifies the complexity of network management for enterprise customers and is particularly beneficial for mission-critical applications where demands on the network frequently changes abruptly,” they said.

ARRP was deployed at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix Formula 1 event, as part of Singtel’s 5G Express Pass offering to consumers.

“This ensured subscribers enjoyed priority network resources which allowed them to livestream the race and festivities, share content on social media in real-time, and call for ride-hailing services in a congested environment where total attendance exceeded 250,000 spectators,” the release said.

Also noted…

T-Mobile announced a partnership with Ericsson, Nvidia and Nokia on AI-RAN and also tied with OpenAI on an intent-driven AI-decisioning platform called IntentCX.

The European Commission has approved the acquisition of Vodafone Italia by Swisscom under the foreign subsidies regulation, although the transaction is still subject to further regulatory approvals.

The European Commission also cleared the acquisition by e& of sole control of PPF Telecom Group.

Airtel announced the launch of an AI-based spam detection solution to tackle spam calls and messages.

Orange Group intends to voluntarily delist its shares from the NYSE.