This blog series focuses on the use of AI-powered digital co-worker tools across industry sectors. This blog talks about the growing use of AI in telecom networks.
Short for telecom, media, entertainment, and gaming, the TMEG sector is largely driven by continuous connectivity for its customers. Be it a live sporting event or a cellular network, zero downtime is an absolute must for users. Traditionally, companies in this industry have responded to any outage reactively with the “war room” approach. However, in the face of growing competition, a reactive approach is no longer sufficient.
The TMEG sector is now building autonomous network operations using AI technology. Powered by Agentic AI, the Telco network healer shifts the paradigm from “reactive” firefighting to “proactive” network healing. Let’s see how this tool works.
The problem of manual diagnosis
Modern telecom networks are not simply physical cables, but a complex ecosystem of multiple components. For any performance drop, there can be any reason ranging from a hardware failure in the server rack, a software bug in the network router, to a cloud configuration problem.
In this scenario, manual diagnosis is time-consuming, as network engineers have to go through thousands of error logs across connected devices. Any downtime can accelerate customer churn and impact brand reputation.
How it works – unified workflow
As Onix’s AI-enabled network automation tool, the telco network healer unifies three crucial phases of incident response, namely, detection, diagnosis, and communication, in a single, autonomous workflow. Through this process, human engineers are alerted to a network outage, along with the plausible solution to the problem. This entire process takes around 2 minutes as compared to around 1 hour for a human engineer.
Here’s the 4-phase sequence of how it works:
- Detection and visualization
In the first step, the telco network healer utilizes its “network topology visualization” feature to geographically map the outage. It shows the network engineer where exactly the problem has happened on a map instead of another IP address. - Automated diagnosis
In the following step, the network healer performs “log parsing” by correlating error logs across devices at machine speed. This helps in identifying the root cause of the problem (for example, Port 8080 failure due to firmware mismatch). - Action and rerouting
The third step of this process provides an immediate remediation for the problem. As an example, the telco network healer tool can draft technical work orders for the maintenance team and recommend traffic rerouting plans depending on the operator’s constraints. - Customer communication
Most importantly, the AI-enabled network healer can simultaneously send notifications to affected customers. This ensures that customers are aware of the problem without calling customer support.
Key metrics in network resilience
The AI-powered telco network healer can reduce downtime in any network with the following 3 key metrics:
- Total time
The network healer tool can prepare and execute an end-to-end incident response in under 2 minutes as compared to hours for a manual response. - Parallel execution
Additionally, this AI tool can simultaneously execute 3 crucial phases, namely, detection, diagnosis, and communication, thus reducing the response time. - Control
With the human-in-the-loop (HITL) oversight, the healer tool can draft the traffic reroute plan and work order. However, the human engineer only has the permission to “execute” the process, thus ensuring both safety and compliance.
Conclusion – delivering network resilience
Enabled by Agentic AI, this network healer tool effectively delivers resilience. Through telecom network automation, TMEG companies can ensure that minor issues don’t escalate to major service outages. Network engineers can now build self-healing networks instead of being firefighters at all times.
Want to know more? Watch this short video on the working of the TMEG network healer tool.
With years of experience working in the telecom, media, and entertainment industry, Onix understands the specific pain points faced by TMEG companies. We can be your reliable AI partner for your next initiative. Contact our team today.
