5G survey reveals CSP attitudes to AI, security, and private networks

Among a bunch of other key findings the survey results presented in the report Maximising the impact of 5G discuss the critical areas of security, AI and Automation, and private networks.

The survey’s main goals were to investigate the current state of 5G security, AI and Automation implementations within 5G networks, as well as the relevance and opportunities with private 5G. With that in mind, it attracted responses from more than 200 professionals and canvassed the opinions of industry representatives, including CSPs, vendors, and system integrators from around the world.

When the respondents’ data are segregated by CSPs the report reveals that this group of respondents’ comfort limits regarding the adoption of AI are reached with AI chatbots and ‘supervised’ automation in a 5G network. The report reads, “it is revealing the extent to which telcos feel most comfortable adopting AI and automation in a closed loop manner and handing over the reins to these technologies in their production environments.”

Nonetheless, the benefits of AI and automation seem clear to the respondents. The two most frequently selected benefits are network performance optimisation (with more than 60%) and improved operational efficiencies (with more than 50%). And while most operators are either adopting or planning to adopt AI, there is still a significant number that remains reluctant in the near-term.

“[T]here remains a significant percentage of CSPs (29%) who need more convincing and as such are still evaluating the potential for AI in their networks. In addition, a smaller but also significant number of CSPs (17%) report that their organisations are not planning to deploy AI at all in the next 18 months.”

In 5G security, some of the findings identify the core network and network operations as critical investment areas. Meanwhile, IT and network interconnectivity are areas identified as causing most concerns among these industry professionals.

“Increased connectivity between IT and the networks (47%) and vulnerabilities in the touchpoints between IT and the network (47%) are the biggest areas of concern” reads the report. It is further argued that with “5G’s SBA framework and an increasing move from traditional IT infrastructure to a more open digital architecture, the results are even more defined when we looked at the data segregated by company type.”

With regards to security automation, the results show that most respondents have this domain on top of their minds. Specifically, automating network policy and security compliance is the most frequently selected security area for automation according to the respondents.

Looking at 5G private networks, there seems to be some good news for operators. Private 5G is considered an essential part of the telco business and operators are believed to play a key role. Of course, this survey is conducted by canvassing the views of telecom professionals, much of whom are representing operators and vendors, but there seems to be a good level of understanding among the respondents on what the key drivers for enterprises to consider private 5G are.

Moreover, many in the industry believe that offerings that combine network slicing and fully dedicated 5G private networks have a greater chance of driving business. As such, this part of the report concludes “the survey results highlight the value our respondents see in private 5G. They also understand the importance of reliable connectivity to enterprises, the usual end users of private networks”.

Overall, the results presented in the report suggest a good balance between respondents’ beliefs of the value technologies such as AI and automation, and services such as private networks and network slicing can add to mobile networks and how these can maximise the impact of 5G in practice. The industry professionals are of course no fools and see where tech-industry led hypes begin and when they need to draw a line between adding value and being swept away by those hypes.

If you’d like to read the full report and gain access to the data behind these highlights, you can download it from here.