With the need to serve both urban and very rural environments, Canadian operators can’t afford to send a truck out every time an update is needed at a site.
Autonomous networks is such an important way for Canadian mobile operators to reduce costs without reducing quality of service, that I’ve made it the topic of the keynote that I will present, with my colleague Sandeep Arora, at the Canadian Telecom Summit (CTS) (May 12-13) in Toronto. The keynote will take place on May 12 at 11:30 am.
Rakuten Symphony offers network automation solutions based on the success the company has achieved in building Rakuten Mobile, the largest cloud-native network built from the ground up.
When launching Rakuten Mobile, the company made a strategic decision to use open and cloud-native software technologies to achieve its goal of creating one of the highest-capacity and most automated networks in the world. That also allowed it to skip over rule-based automation and start from the beginning with software automation that made zero-touch possible.
In the keynote, we will cover how this approach has advanced the company’s autonomous network journey. We use the TM Forum network autonomy model, which starts at level 1 for no autonomy and goes to level 5 for self-driving networks. Recently, the TM Forum formally validated Rakuten Mobile at level 4 autonomy for RAN energy efficiency, an industry first.
Most networks today average between 1.5 and 2.0 on the model. Our goal in this keynote is to show Canadian MNO leaders what needs to happen to experience the benefits of level 4 automation.
Having worked in the Canadian telecom industry for many years, I’ve seen firsthand the increasing cost pressures operators are under. With revenues largely plateauing, margins being squeezed, and growing expectations from investors, there is a strong push to make networks leaner and more efficient. In a mature market like Canada—where penetration exceeds 95%—network autonomy is not just important, it’s becoming essential to sustain profitability and meet these evolving demands.
In this market, several of the provincial MNOs are expanding to offer nationwide service cost-effectively, while the established national providers are seeking ways to cut costs through efficiency. Nationwide expansion can mean developing services in rural areas, as Canada is ten times bigger than India with 1/30th of the population. Here, especially, it is important to be cost-efficient.
We’ll show how our AI-driven OSS, cloud-native, and open solutions are designed to help regional operators reduce OPEX, improve operational efficiency, and accelerate network innovation.
Rakuten Symphony's technology is widely deployed and fully tested in Rakuten Mobile—the largest cloud-native Open RAN deployment in the world. In the Americas, it is also the chosen partner for carriers such as AT&T and Boost Mobile.
Whether you are looking to grow or to be more efficient, our keynote will have some guidance that can help you improve your network.
Also at CTS, Rakuten Symphony is represented in a panel featuring Vivek Murthy, President, OSS at Rakuten Symphony. This panel is titled “Intelligent AI Fabric and Business Automation.” Murthy will be joined by industry analysts and experts from IBM Canada and Capgemini. The presentation will start at 1:30 pm on May 13. Murthy is an expert on the topic of AI for MNOs, having written and spoken about the topic all over the world.
If you are in the Canadian telecom industry, I hope to see you at CTS. I will have time to meet with colleagues during the show. Send me an email if you would like to hear more about the importance and possibilities of network automation.
