New TM Forum project to demo high-value use cases for level 4 autonomous networks

TM Forum is launching a new Innovation Pioneer Project that will bring together communications service providers (CSPs) and their technology partners to implement high-value autonomous network (AN) use cases. Demonstrations of the first implementations will take place at Innovate24 Asia in November.

The AN Innovation Pioneer Project, which is a special type of Catalyst proof-of-concept project, kicked off this week with a call for participation. “The focus is on taking the concepts we’ve developed in the Autonomous Networks Project and turning them into real-world solutions that can deliver tangible benefits,” says TM Forum CTO George Glass.

The AN Project has developed a six-step maturity model that CSPs can use to measure their progress in implementing autonomous networks (see graphic). Each AN level has a set of characteristics describing the evolutionary stage of the CSP’s journey from manual to fully autonomous operations. Based on TM Forum’s definition, Level 4 autonomous networks mark the transition between traditional automation of human-defined process behavior and autonomous behavior, where systems make decisions independent of humans. How to achieve Level 4 will be the focus of the collaborative Innovation Pioneer Project.

To get to Level 4, CSPs need to be able to turn their customers’ business goals, or “intents”, into instructions for the network that can be fulfilled without customers needing to know any details about the underlying infrastructure. The idea is to abstract the complexity and communicate with customers using a common language, or ontology, that can also be made machine readable.

“We are changing the way customers will specify what they’re looking for from a network,” says Glass. “No longer will they buy a particular network technology. Instead, they will describe the outcome or the scenario that they want to achieve, and we will take that and use our intent ontology to translate it into a set of service characteristics.”

He adds: “The customer never needs to understand whether they’re using fixed access or mobile access. They may not even know anything about the bandwidth, the speed or the latency. They just describe the outcome they want.”

Identifying high-value scenarios

So far, more than 60 companies have signed the Autonomous Networks Manifesto, pledging to work toward Level 4 autonomy within the next two years. To support this goal, the AN Innovation Pioneer Project will explore a series of Level 4 high-value “scenarios”, or potential use cases, looking at whether they can be assessed using the AN maturity model. Teams will also evaluate the availability of enabling technologies to implement the use cases and the potential return on investment for CSPs.

The broader AN Project team has already identified some high-value scenarios focusing on operations, maintenance and optimization in multiple network domains including radio access, fixed access, core, IP and optical transport networks. Examples include provisioning and assurance of home broadband and enterprise private lines as well as optimization of networks and energy consumption in wireless and IP networks.

Collaborative R&D

The goal with each scenario is first to identify gaps between the current level of automation in CSPs’ networks and Level 4 autonomy. Then, the teams will design solutions, implement and test them, and finally verify the achievement of AN Level 4.

“The concept is to get teams collaborating to achieve a solution more rapidly than individual organizations can build on their own,” says Glass, adding that standardization is also an important focus of the Pioneer Project.

“Consistent and standardized interfaces are necessary,” he explains. “Otherwise, we’ll never get the level of automation required, because the response time for the changes needed to reconfigure networks to deliver real-time customer experience is in nanoseconds.”

The teams participating in the project will leverage TM Forum’s Autonomous Network Framework, which supports intent-based management and intelligent orchestration to simplify network management, automate service delivery, and enable self-optimizing and self-healing capabilities.

“The key is to embed AI into the architecture, rather than bolting it on as an afterthought,” says Glass. “By leveraging concepts like autonomy, intent, control loops, and self-healing domains, we can truly transform the way networks are designed and operated.”

If you’d like to get involved in the AN Innovation Pioneer Project, please contact Shengfan Hou: shou@tmforum.org