As the new Chief Technology Officer for Telecom at Red Hat, my priority is to deliver value to our customers with tangible business results, optimizing solutions that connect society and improve our quality of life. In the near future, service providers will strategically adopt emerging technologies, prioritizing operational efficiency, resilience, security, sustainability, and cost. In this blog, I will share key insights, gleaned from numerous conversations about these crucial aspects, on how service providers can meet the challenges of the future.
 
Embracing AI in the midst of chaos
 
Artificial intelligence (AI) is well-positioned to benefit from the deployment flexibility offered by the distributed nature of service provider networks, as well as to help boost their operational efficiencies. Open source is working to help create smaller AI models, which can help reduce costs and computing requirements while enhancing an organization's existing applications and processes. And by leveraging these smaller AI models across the radio access network (RAN), the core network, and other areas, service providers will be able to address a growing number of business and operational challenges.
 
The opportunities in AI for service providers are greater than ever, but so is the complexity, especially as the number and size of AI applications increase. Red Hat is working to simplify this growing complexity with data engineering initiatives and trusted solutions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI and Red Hat OpenShift AI, which enable faster data processing, real-time decision-making, and improved application performance.
Service providers will be able to leverage AI to enable intelligent automation of lifecycle management. This will provide better insights from multiple network and IT domains, including every device and service, to improve business and resource efficiency. We are already seeing this unfold. Many service providers have moved beyond the initial AI testing phase, deploying a diverse set of cognitive assistants, customer service use cases, and business operations, as the business benefits can be easily quantified. Some service providers also offer these AI capabilities as a service to their enterprise customers. Other AI-enabled use cases are currently being tested across their network environment, particularly within the AI-RAN, to achieve sustainability goals and build an autonomous intelligent infrastructure.
 
While AI can offer substantial benefits, the return on investment (ROI) may not be immediate. This means service providers must identify a realistic goal for increasing productivity and operational efficiency through AI and implement it across their enterprise accordingly. By leveraging AI with clear objectives and a well-defined strategy, service providers can bring their AI projects into production faster and achieve better results.
 
From telecommunications companies to technology companies
 
In recent years, telecommunications companies have evolved into technology companies (Telco to Techco). This means that, in addition to providing connectivity, they now also offer digital services and solutions. This shift brings significant challenges, such as regulations, cybersecurity, and internal transformations. However, by adopting open-source technologies and methodologies (software that anyone can freely use, modify, and share), telcos can overcome these challenges and discover new growth opportunities, innovate their business models, and enhance their market presence. To accelerate this process, we share some suggestions and lessons learned from working with our clients:
 
● Focus on achieving business results in a phased execution.
● Empower cross-functional teams to collaborate and execute successfully.
● Select partners and integrators that understand and align with business objectives.
● Supplement teams with qualified members and training from partners.
● Automate everything to compensate for operational complexity and gain agility.
● Establish clear success criteria and monitor project progress.
● Lead integration and ongoing governance initiatives.
● Start with small projects and make continuous adjustments as needed.
 
Virtualization is back (although it never really left)
 
Virtualization has once again taken center stage with a fresh perspective across the telecommunications industry. While service providers are using virtualization at scale worldwide, they are taking a closer look at their investments in certain areas of the business as a result of rising operating costs and a rapidly changing business landscape.
 
As service providers explore alternatives to their existing virtualized infrastructure, they are discovering that modernizing to a common cloud-native infrastructure yields quantifiable business results. Furthermore, telcos are looking to transform their environments to integrate their mission-critical applications with a growing number of AI models and tools.
 
Service providers work with Red Hat to save costs and transform their business while extending the lifespan of their virtual machines (VMs). They gain operational benefits through a unified approach to managing legacy virtualized applications and modern cloud-native workloads.
 
Common cloud architectures mark a turning point for open RAN
 
Open RAN deployments have progressed more slowly than traditional RAN, but they have now achieved the cost-effectiveness and performance necessary for widespread adoption. The ecosystem has matured, supported by common cloud platforms and operational tools that streamline automation and lifecycle management across many RAN sites.
 
Service providers that have deployed multi-vendor 5G core applications on a common cloud-native platform have applied this learning to open RAN, accelerating time to market. Open RAN is gaining momentum by enabling providers to differentiate themselves from the competition, improving security, operations, and service delivery at the edge.
 
Private networks are leading the adoption of open RAN, leveraging it to deliver customizable and reliable enterprise solutions. Service providers are also using it with fixed wireless access (FWA) to expand broadband into underserved areas. Meanwhile, commercial low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite offerings with non-terrestrial networks (NTN) are poised to extend mobile broadband to remote regions.
 
Leveraging observability to drive smart, autonomous infrastructure
 
Observability is a data-driven approach to automating infrastructure across hardware, software, and cloud deployments. Accessing and analyzing this data at scale is becoming a key differentiator for service providers. Large-scale access and analysis of this data, combining predictive analytics, generative AI, and open APIs, enables the generation of valuable insights and operational recommendations for building intelligent and autonomous infrastructure. One example of intelligent and autonomous infrastructure is AI in RAN, which can dynamically manage frequencies, sectors, and base stations, improving efficiency, power consumption, and performance metrics. Similarly, generative AI and AIOps are enabling predictive maintenance, accurate root cause analysis (RCA), and smarter decision-making, with privacy and compliance safeguards.
 
Laying the foundations for 6G and the future
 
Service providers are taking a more cautious approach to the next generation of mobile architecture (6G), focusing on improving business outcomes. Defining 6G involves more than just infrastructure: it requires the participation of a broader ecosystem of industry players, demanding structural and cultural changes across the entire value chain. This collaborative approach will be key to driving innovation and ensuring that the technology meets future demands.
 
Over the next year, using modern 5G core and RAN network applications on common cloud platforms, the telecommunications industry will focus its efforts on:
 
● Key aspects that differentiate 6G from 5G capabilities.
● Distributed architectures with autonomous intelligent infrastructure powered by AI.
● Open APIs to streamline interactions between multiple systems and offer new services.
● Evolution of network segmentation with AI inference to enable intelligent connectivity.
● Integration of all photonic and non-terrestrial network (NTN) technologies.
 
As part of these efforts, we will also see service providers explore new 6G-powered use cases, from immersive AR/VR/XR experiences and advanced autonomous vehicles (V2X) to precision positioning and integrated sensing. This exploration can also help achieve more energy-efficient Internet of Things (IoT) integration, driving how we deliver services in remote and far-end operations.
 
Open source will play a critical role in driving innovation by providing the necessary flexibility, managing unpredictability, and maintaining independence in our rapidly evolving world. The way forward will focus on leveraging AI combined with closed-loop automation to unlock new data-driven services, meet ambitious sustainability goals, and create a better world. In the face of constant disruption, service providers will need to continuously adapt, empowering their teams to transform how they work, differentiate themselves from the competition, and drive business value and operational efficiency.

By Ian Hood, CTO, Telecommunications, Red Hat