This is an excerpt from our new research report Service assurance in the 5G era.
Download the report now for the full insight.5G has become synonymous with innovation, IT modernization and a huge broadening of the capabilities communications service providers (CSPs) can provide to their customers, especially enterprises. Reinventing the role of CSPs in this era requires reimagining operational and business support systems (OSS/BSS), which includes embracing automation and AI in service assurance.
The drive for business diversification has put CSPs in uncharted territory, chasing new digital revenue streams and crossindustry B2B2X partnerships. Preparing for this change has meant fundamental transitions in telco operations. Indeed, many operators have taken the first steps on a path away from being a traditional telco. However, they are retaining their largest capital asset: their networks.
CSPs understandably have put much of their developmental focus on 5G in the radio, proving the access technology will work. Now they are turning their focus to building 5G access and core networks at scale. In doing so they are scrutinizing the economics of 5G operations, which puts support systems in the spotlight. Service assurance has become an especially hot topic as it sits at the nexus between network-facing operations and the customer-facing business.
These groups traditionally have been disconnected within CSP organizations, but this cannot continue if they want to deliver on the promises of 5G. The simultaneous maturing of cloud, virtualization, analytics, AI and machine learning, microservices, and DevOps means that all the right tools are in place to achieve long-held goals for assuring quality of service end to end.
CX is a network topic
One of the key challenges for suppliers of service assurance systems lies in being able to identify proactively network issues that impact customer experience (CX). The notion of directly influencing customer service outcomes by improving understanding of network issues has not been an exact science, or at least not an accurately measurable one.
Because of the complexity of networks and OSS, this has been possible only for select service examples, such as in small private networks. The expectation of new service assurance systems is that they can bring together network and service operations to directly equate network issues to their impact on CX.
In this time of network investment, assurance must focus not only on performance management and fault monitoring of existing infrastructure, but also on helping to optimally plan 5G rollouts. In an ideal world, network investments would focus on improving customer experience, while reducing costs and honing operational efficiency, and any improvements in the network should be easily measured in tangible benefits.
In the real world, however, layers of complexities prevent CSPs from precisely identifying network events relevant to specific customer experience KPIs. In the 5G era it should become possible for operators to filter the pertinent information from the noise, understand the consequences and take action to optimize operations, all in a highly automated fashion.
