Orange sets ambitious autonomous network operation goals

Orange has set an ambitious and strategic near-term target for automating its network operations as it seeks to maximize the value of its network infrastructure.

The company "considers its activity as an infrastructure operator to be absolutely strategic,” according to Michaël Trabbia, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, Orange, speaking at the company’s Capital Market Day. And its “goal as an operator is to become the reference in network agility, resilience and performance," explained Trabbia. Achieving this ambition, he explains, will require software transformation, automation and the use of AI, guided by TM Forum standards.

“We will measure our progress in this transformation based on the standards set by the TM Forum for the level of automation in network operations. Our ambition is to move from level one or two currently depending on the country to level four by 2025,” said Trabbia.

As part of its move to greater automation, the company is putting in place group-wide network integration factories and shared operation centers, according to Trabbia. “They will allow new on-demand network services, operating in network-as-a-service mode, thus creating new business opportunities that will also strengthen the resilience and security of our networks by allowing way faster operations,” he explained. For example, the company will be able to complete the full recovery of a core mobile network in less than an hour compared to at least a week today. It also expects to be able to ensure continuous security updates, and to detect network anomalies in three minutes instead of five hours, Trabbia added.

In addition to simplifying processes and optimizing costs, Orange believes greater automation will have an impact on its environmental footprint, and help the company to reduce network power consumption by up to 20%.

“The use of AI at scale will be key for this transformation and is made possible by solid foundations. We manage security, data prediction, ethics and ESG requirements on a global basis. This allows us to dramatically accelerate access to the data and to share and regulate use cases developed across this structural transformation for networks we go in and with the commissioning of all our technologies.”

Rejuvenation

Automation is part of Orange’s journey towards what its CEO, Christel Heydemann, calls ‘the next big thing in our industry,” which unlike the past is not a new 'G', but rather a move to business models supported by more open, software-based networks.

Telecoms “is an old industry carrying four mobile networks and two fixed networks that will become younger … as we decommission 2G and 3G, as we decommission copper, as we get software infrastructure, as we become an open network that ... has a lot of data and critical assets,” according to Heydemann. All of which could help the industry develop a different relationship with major technology companies.

"Big Tech … needs infrastructure for their services to operate as promised to enterprise customers or citizens,” said Heydemann. For example, “when they need edge computing, that's for us to capture the value that sits in the solution. Cloud infrastructure is nothing without the network to connect to people.”

Indeed, Orange Business has just signed up to the Integrated Private Wireless on AWS program, along with Deutsche Telekom, KDDI, T-Mobile, and Telefonica Tech.

AWS will provide enterprises with a portal where they can browse for private wireless offerings from participating telcos by industry or use case. “From the portal, customers can contact the telco of choice, who will design, deliver, operate, and support the private wireless solution,” according to AWS.

Orange will draw on what it has learnt from Pikeo, its experimental 5G SA network, where it tests the future of cloud-based, autonomous networks, to deliver services through the AWS program.

“I am very proud of our Pikeo Team who has now become a master of 5G SA multicloud and cloud native integration and operations on various environments: "on prem" or "hybrid on the public cloud" depending on customer needs,” according to Laurent Leboucher, Group CTO & Senior Vice President Orange Innovation Networks, commenting on the Integrated Private Wireless on AWS program on LinkedIn. “Deploying and operating at the speed of light 5G private networks on powerful cloud environments creates new opportunities for data intensive IoT use cases like smart factories removing boundaries between network connectivity and digital applications.”