Karl Heinz Frankeser is CEO of METAVSHN, a telecom operations platform for ISPs and MVNOs that emerged as a spin-off of his family’s business, Swiss telecom provider Ticinocom SA, where he also serves as CTO. In this article, Karl reflects on the gaps he encountered with traditional BSS providers, why he decided to solve them himself and what others can learn from his journey. When people talk about transformation in telecom, the conversation often starts with frameworks, architectures and multi-year roadmaps. Mine did not. It started with a problem.

At FutureNet World, Rakuten Symphony EMEA SVP Faiq Khan joined representatives from Orange Business, BT International and TELUS on a keynote panel exploring how telcos can monetize the AI gold rush. In this article, he explores the real tension between tech deployment and monetization, and the broader conversation that took place at the show this week. FutureNet World hosted a strong attendee mix in London this week, which led to productive conversations, especially around the continued push and pull of new tech rollout and revenue realties.

Ahead of Google Cloud Next, Rakuten Symphony SVP, Global Head of Sales, Enterprise Business Unit, Anirban Oni Chakravartti shares insights from the company's work helping retailers overcome the limits of centralized IT by moving intelligence closer to the customer. The key takeaways are a blueprint for any enterprise running latency-sensitive operations at physical scale. Companies with regional or even global footprints know firsthand how quickly inefficiency can scale. Any delay means immediate, measurable business consequences and potential impacts for an untold number of customers.

NTN services are live, delivering video calls, VoLTE and more, representing a new chapter and growth opportunity in mobile connectivity. The tech is ready, but the OSS that has powered telecom networks wasn’t built for this. Rakuten Symphony Head of OSS Sales Anshul Bhatt explains what actually changes when satellites become part of a mobile network’s operating model and how OSS needs to adapt. For decades, fixed mobile networks have served moving users. Roaming, handoffs, in-door, Wi-Fi—every aspect of the equation has been iteratively optimized to maximize experience for subscribers on the go.

At MWC Barcelona 2026, Rakuten Mobile announced it was successfully validated by TM Forum to achieve Level 4 autonomy for energy efficiency, delivering 20% RAN energy conservation. In this article, Rakuten Symphony VP of Automation and Transformation Ahmed Gamal Abdelaziz unpacks what the certification represents at a system level, the five foundational layers that support L4 deployments and how operators can begin approaching their own strategies.

In this special MWC Barcelona edition of Zero-Touch, Rakuten Symphony SVP Partner & Portfolio Sheheryar Khakwani (SK) reflects on why telecom’s next phase of growth hinges on how industry stakeholders collaborate to turn capability into service.

In this issue, Rakuten Symphony SVP of Technology Devesh Gautam explores what it actually takes to manage networks as software systems, drawing on his extensive experience building greenfield networks at Jio and Rakuten Mobile.

Open RAN has delivered the economic, operational and diversification results for those that have managed to introduce it with high levels of automation and software management across testing, planning, deploying, operating and assuring. These have been mainly greenfield rollouts, unencumbered by existing practices and organization structures.

Cloud deployments, in all parts of the telecom ecosystem, aren’t broken. Yet, in boardrooms from west to east, the decisions that underpinned them are being urgently revisited. Why fix what still works? For many, cloud’s initial promise of infinite elasticity and cost-efficiency has hit a wall, and distribution requirements have outgrown the original promise.

Is a scalable, cloud and AI-native telco network business that powers operational efficiency and delivers robust, sustained revenue streams finally in sight? The Mobile Network editor Keith Dyer spent the year investigating, revealing that this once idealized “future state” is already a reality for leading stakeholders. In this week’s issue of the Zero-Touch newsletter, he highlights his findings and the key takeaways captured in the Future Telco Report, out now.

In this week’s Zero-Touch newsletter, Rakuten Symphony CMO Geoff Hollingworth shares his observations on telecom’s persistent “sexiness” challenge and why his experience at the recent AWS Breaking Barriers Hackathon, held at FYUZ 2025, has him thinking telcos may finally be getting their innovation groove back. Then AWS 6G and AIML Technologist Ejaz Sial and AWS Industries Director Technology Kaniz Mahdi share a readout from the hackathon, which brought together 377 participants from 68 projects and crowned a winner that showcased impressive, AI-driven RAN learning and optimization. First up, Geoff Hollingworth.

As co-chair of the O-RAN Alliance Security Work Group, Rakuten Symphony head of security standards and research Nagendra Bykampadi recently joined industry colleagues in Dallas for the annual Zero Trust Architecture Workshop. Following are key takeaways from his presentation about how 6G’s shift toward AI-native networks will require rethinking security from the ground up, starting with how we define trust itself.

Telecom Infra Project (TIP) executive director Kristian Toivo and Rakuten Symphony CMO Geoff Hollingworth are set to deliver opening keynote interviews at Mobile World Live’s upcoming Unwrapped: The 5G Evolution event, where they’ll discuss the shift to software-based, cloud-agnostic networks and the realities of deploying open and cloud-native RAN architectures. In this article, Geoff and Kristian share their perspective on what it will take to scale openness across networks and how collaboration is shaping the path forward.

“Gradually, then suddenly.” In a 1926 novel, Ernest Hemingway used the phrase to describe how a man went bankrupt. His words also perfectly capture how operators will embrace automation and AI. I shared this quote in my opening remarks last week at Mobile World Congress Las Vegas during the Agentic AI Summit session, Smart Networks, Smart Services: Agentic AI for Telcos.

Digital-first is the undisputed destination for every telco. Businesses that run on software and data versus people and manual processes deliver flexibility in every important aspect of service delivery and monetization.

Enterprise AI adoption is not a matter of if but how. The largest companies in the world are making significant investments across tech, people and resources, angling for an advantage that could pay dividends for those that establish leadership positions.

In 2016, concerned about the excessive hype around 5G, telecom engineer, strategist, and author William Webb wrote The 5G Myth to explain why many of the promised breakthroughs were unlikely to materialize. The book challenged the need for higher speeds and greater capacity, arguing that 4G was already sufficient and that user demand for mobile data would plateau by 2027. William’s predictions were informed by a rare combination of technical and regulatory experience. With a PhD in mobile telecoms and a 35-year career that included roles at Ofcom, Motorola, co-founding an IoT start-up, and advising on telecom strategy, he had seen the industry from every angle.

AI will never be this disappointing again. At the same time, it is amazing. When we live through paradigm shifts, it’s easy to forget that the shift is incomplete and there is always more to come. The Ford Model T was the first generation of mass-produced car. 100 years of automobile innovation later, we can see how basic they were when they rolled off the assembly line.

More than a billion+ users later, LLMs have been adopted faster than any tech in history, powered by the experience shift from “searching” for information and being presented links to getting targeted answers that are “generated” in milliseconds. With this shift came fast-changing expectations across enterprise software, telco operations and daily productivity.

AI models don’t just work or fail. They learn, adapt and sometimes stall or go off track. The challenge is understanding why they behave the way they do and how to guide them back on course.

Operators want industrial-grade infrastructure that is scalable, efficient and ready for automation and AI. Progress on this front has been limited, though. Even the most advanced telcos are operating just 5-10% true cloud-native infrastructure today. With goals to achieve upwards of 60-70% cloud-native by end of the decade, the focus now is on concrete steps that can be taken to meet this ambitious goal. If progress were just a matter of deploying new tools, operators would already be well on their way. But it’s not as simple as that.

Data privacy is everything in business and customer consent is not optional. With more than 70 businesses, Rakuten’s access to first-party data across a range of consumer services is a unique differentiator. Our ability to combine this data with insights from mobile data usage is unprecedented. Japan’s consumer data privacy laws are among the most robust in Asia and are similar to other global standards like the EU’s GDPR, so Rakuten’s boundaries and possibilities for using data are no different from others.

DTW in Copenhagen is right around the corner, with operators and vendors prepping for another important annual OSS industry deep dive. It’s a good time to revisit service assurance and AI-driven operations objectives. Crucially, this has to be done with acknowledgement of an inescapable reality: intelligent operations don’t begin once the network is live. They start on day zero when planning, building or modernization first takes shape.

The Rakuten Symphony team is in attendance at FutureNet World London this week. More conversations are starting to expose the inevitable reality of operators under pressure to meet demands of new networks. Whether they are prepping for AI, private networks, 6G or something else. While these networks may be different, in many ways, the challenges are the same. The industry’s default response to previous challenges and opportunities alike has been to deploy more tools and more technology, hoping it will solve underlying problems. But that won’t be possible this time.

External network security attacks are more likely to succeed as attacker sophistication increases. Modern malware is polymorphic and programmed to evade common signatures, rules and perimeter-based defense mechanisms. Once hackers make it into the network, they can stealthily navigate it, compromising accounts, seeking out valuable assets and gradually stealing data.

Operationally industrializing AI is the number one key success factor that enables: Data scientists to focus on data and AI, not tooling. IT to support data scientists with the maximum amount of automation. AI, data and model governance enforcement from a security, privacy and lifecycle management perspective.

Edge computing has steadily found its footing, adding value to an expanding set of enterprise use cases. Today, it is increasingly common to see edge deployments supporting point-of-sale systems, factory operations and distributed branches. Now, it is set to play a more prominent and critical role in a range of deployments. This is a key takeaway from Rakuten Cloud and Google Cloud's discussions with customers and partners at Google Cloud Next '26, which took place last week in Las Vegas.

There is nothing wrong with “agentic AI” except it doesn’t explain anything new. Nothing will compete with peak AI hype but coming out of MWC Barcelona 2025, agentic AI is certainly having a moment. An industry well aware of the pitfalls of tech hyperbole now sees AI-powered agents as the key to unlocking automation, efficiency and intelligence across telecom networks. Here we go again. Another buzzword and unicorn-like promise of transformation.

While Wi-Fi 7 and private 5G promise lower latency, higher throughput and more robust connectivity compared to traditional wireless technologies, performance heavily depends on the underlying network design choices. Suboptimal coverage, high interference, cut-offs during roaming and limited capacity are typically a result of insufficient or faulty network design that can hamper the network’s ability to deliver on its potential. This week’s Zero-Touch newsletter guest author is Jussi Kiviniemi, founder and CEO of Hamina Wireless. Jussi shares his perspective on enterprise wireless network challenges and key design considerations, including coverage, capacity and roaming. He also highlights key aspects of enterprise wireless network design and important considerations.

Accurate anomaly detection and security monitoring are hallmarks of network resilience and operational efficiency. They are a major focus area for every telco but despite decades of experience and proven practices, have only grown more challenging due to complex, cloud-native architecture and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.

Closed systems cannot scale beyond the approach of the individual companies deploying them. While they may serve one company’s needs or interests, they don’t support a thriving, collaborative ecosystem that drives industry-wide progress. Any closed system is limited to one supplier’s choices, priorities, limitations and politics. We are seeing this limitation play out in telecom and other industries.

How long have we been talking about network slicing’s vast market potential? This promising 5G network feature was supposed to have revolutionized telecom by now, powering tailored, on-demand services for eager adopters across industries. Yet, despite being technically capable of dynamically managing networks for precise customer needs, adoption has been slower than anticipated.

The vision for what is possible can be clear as day. The path to achieve it is never quite as obvious. When Rakuten Mobile launched the world’s first fully cloud-native, software-based mobile network service in a developed, highly competitive market in Japan, and a plan for upending traditional telecom economics, few outside the company saw the opportunity.

What a year for telco tech advancement. 2024 is officially the year that promise started to become reality, especially as it relates to implementation of AI and automation in networks. We started the Zero-Touch Telecom newsletter and companion video series, Zero-Touch Telecom Live one year ago to feature the practical experience and takeaways from the practitioners pushing the boundaries of AI model creation and deployment, data platform design, growth strategies, connecting the unconnected, cloud workload planning and more.

In telecom, we are in a race to revenue and growth. Telcos understand how to execute iterative improvements with meticulous planning and operational precision. But the same strengths that help minimize risk also limit disruptive innovation. Our guest author today is industry analyst and consultant Patrick Lopez who recounts his success applying a lean startup mentality to large telcos, including during his time leading new business discovery at Telefónica, where he served as Global Vice President of Networks Innovation and implemented its Lean Elephant framework. Most recently, Patrick led product management for Open RAN, packet core, cloud and automation for NEC and today is an independent telco and cloud industry analyst and strategy consultant.

Glyn Povah, Founder and Director of Global Product Development, Smart Digits at Telefónica Tech, is our guest author this week. In this issue, he shares his perspective on an important but often overlooked component of the telco API equation: the customer. Our industry has talked a lot about telco APIs but usually from the perspective of what we have to offer. We tend not to talk as much about the demand side and how customers can actually benefit.

I was asked by GSMA to deliver a keynote this week as part of its Telco AI Summit held at Mobile World Congress Las Vegas. The summit program explored how AI and GenAI are being used by operators, how usage will evolve over time, and the implications for performance, customer relations and competition. It was encouraging to hear grounded discussion amongst the participants. Often when discussing promising new technologies, we focus on the wonder of all that is possible. That’s great for creating buzz, but not so much for delivering results.

We recently published the thirtieth issue of our Zero-Touch Telecom newsletter. Each article and the companion live interview episodes we broadcast have explored the real work of deploying automation and AI in networks. With 50K+ subscribers to this newsletter, we want to be sure we’re making our growing library of content accessible and digestible for new and veteran readers alike.

This is the final installment of our three-part series highlighting Rakuten Symphony Cloud Business Unit President Partha Seetala's “A Comprehensive and Intuitive Introduction to Deep Learning” (CIDL) web training series, which provides an accessible introduction to neural networks for anyone working in the field of AI.

This is the second installment of our special three-part series highlighting Rakuten Symphony Cloud Business Unit President Partha Seetala's “A Comprehensive and Intuitive Introduction to Deep Learning” (CIDL) web training series, which provides an accessible introduction to neural networks for anyone working in the field of AI.

It is possible we are at the peak of AI’s hype cycle. This doesn’t change the inevitability that AI will significantly alter careers in ways that are positive, negative and unknown. We have spent considerable time in this newsletter exploring how AI impacts the way networks are operated and businesses are transformed.

Rakuten Mobile Data Governance and Compliance Vice Department Manager Koustav Das shares his experience designing, scaling and driving adoption of modern data architectures to address evolving telco AI workloads. Telcos have pushed traditional data governance strategies to the limits. Hardened processes across tens or even hundreds of millions of subscribers have resulted in siloed data stacks that are carefully protected by data governance within mobile operator organizations.

The future of connectivity has arrived. Now, we must make it evenly distributed, says Previsions CEO and analytics expert Henrik Pålsson. Every night, I fall asleep with my Philippine village's internet lab server humming away on the floor below me. It is a reality two decades in the making, with eye-opening experiences I believe can guide the broader telecom industry’s historically elusive efforts to achieve a major stated goal: connect the unconnected.

AI excitement remains rightfully high. Recognition of unending potential has sent stakeholders racing off in virtually every direction in efforts to conquer challenges and pursue new opportunities. In this piece, we take you behind the curtain of the AI strategies we have deployed to target revenue growth and expand revenue streams, discussing how they can be applied to global telco efforts.

Before MWC Barcelona we cautioned everybody to expect AI to be everywhere and discussed as if it were a magical unicorn to make all industry problems disappear. We cautioned people to look for people who were solving real problems and then were using AI as a tool to help assist with the solving of those problems.

Rakuten Symphony CMO Geoff Hollingworth discusses the importance of automation and AI in achieving operational excellence and competitive advantage. This week, I’m speaking at TelecomTV’s DSP Leaders World Forum on a panel about “leveraging telco cloud for advanced operations.”

You're at a theater and experiencing an unusually long wait to be seated. Despite there being the usual number of ushers, you notice some are just walking around and not actually helping anyone. This hidden inefficiency mirrors a problem faced by mobile operators: sleeping cells.

Atila Horvat, Head of Network Slicing at Rakuten Symphony, examines how network slicing can be a viable market offering for mobile operators and offers a pathway to success. As one of the original architects of network slicing for mobile networks, I’d like to offer perspective on the real market opportunity for slicing without the hype, false hope and delusion that sometimes confuses conversations.

As Chief Data Officer for Rakuten Mobile, I’ve worked with my team to build and deploy AI models that have been deployed and fine-tuned to optimize and monetize our network. Our Remote Electrical Tilt (RET) model has been live in Japan for two years, successfully maximizing coverage and capacity by increasing spectral efficiency. We have achieved 25% spectral efficiency improvement and raised handover rates from 97% to 99%.

Mobile finally has a sexy side again as automation and AI grab headlines for the potential to supercharge operations and drive revenues. But these buzzworthy developments are completely dependent on unified quality data, a rare commodity within most tier-one telco organizations. This is driving the need for Enterprise Data Modeling (EDM) strategies built for the realities of today's mobile operators.

Behind the facade of captivating marketing campaigns touting high-speed data and extensive signal coverage, telecommunications companies face the critical yet unglamorous task of planning, building and subsequent management of increasingly complicated networks.

Those of us who have spent enough time in telecom know this all too well. We’ve seen the slow, tragic death of transformation projects that got far down the line only to run out of budget or into unforeseen challenges. No one gets out unscathed when this happens. Vendors have wasted precious time and money. Operators don’t get the features and business benefits they desperately need. Financial stakeholders lose patience.

AI holds vast potential for telecom, but conversations can be watered down discussing endless possibilities of some undefined future vision. This hinders the ability to execute with focus and discipline in the near term. In a rush to feel like progress is being made, partnerships may be signed without strong direction. When the dust settles, will these alliances actually benefit both parties or will we discover the AI company has become stronger and better positioned?

Automation without a business case is a ship without water. Lots of potential but terribly impractical. The business case for automation is so important and the dynamics around it so nuanced, we wanted to be sure we clearly conveyed the most critical elements. Creating the business case requires exploring what creates costs. The main contributors? People, tooling and time.

We often talk past each other when discussing how to bring new tech into telco networks. Discussions about automation are particularly challenging given its long, evolving role across various telco-operator domains. All of this baggage is brought to the table when teams from different domains attempt to collaborate on modern implementations, especially as traditional network functions move toward the cloud to be operated with IT principles and follow software development and implementation cycles like CI/CD.

There’s no shortage of telecom newsletters. This one aims to be different. We won’t promote company news or pat ourselves on the back for award wins. (But definitely check out our Community page if that’s your thing!) Rather, we want to share everything we’re learning about automation and AI in telecom networks. Real insights. Practical use cases. All based on actual experience.