Relive the Innovation: AWS Next Level Demo Recordings from MWC24

Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona was another successful year where AWS for Telecom was on hand to deliver insightful sessions and interactive demos providing attendees with an opportunity to engage with AWS experts.

A curated selection of more than 20 customer focused partner integrated demos were showcased across four areas of expertise: generative AI, SaaS, network cloudification, and network API’s.

MWC24 attendees were able to see how AWS is taking its obsession towards their customer to the next level by showcasing proof points and customer success references powered by AWS partners.

AWS demos were split between three main themes: transforming telcos featuring a network cloudification journey that involved Cloud RAN optimization, smart scaling of 5G core, IMS resiliency, network lifecycle management, and smart billing; digitizing industries, featuring collaboration with Telcos and global systems integrators (GSI’s) enabling innovation across industry verticals while achieving cost optimization and network monetization opportunities for Telcos; and reimagining consumer experience, where demos focussed on the innovative solutions AWS is developing in collaboration with telcos and leading independent software vendors (ISVs) to elevate consumer experience while enabling new revenue streams.

Transforming telcos

Communication service providers (CSPs) are moving away from complex radio access network (RAN) products, as they seek to take advantage of the flexibility, scalability, and simplicity provided by network cloudification. This transition is enabling CSPs to explore new use cases, optimize network performance, integrate generative AI, deliver new services at scale, and improve data insights via technologies such as telco-specific large language models (LLMs).

Highlights from this track included:

• Samsung Cloud RAN Leveraging Cloud RAN with Samsung to provision workloads dynamically across 4G and 5G;
• Generative AI RAN chatbot resulting in a 20% increase in team efficiency and 10% reduction in the duration of the maintenance window for RAN operations Chatbot by creating an operational chatbot, resulting in a 30 percipiency;
• Telstra IMS on AWS improving the availability and reliability of IP-based multimedia services (IMS) with Telstra;
• Ericsson Language Intelligence on AWS using AWS generative AI to gain Telco focused intelligence using telco-specific large language models (LLMs);
• Nokia Cloud RAN, with Telefonica leveraging Nokia cloud RAN to boost performance and scalability.

A selection of demos also focused on reducing capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure (OPEX). With 37 percent of call center queries focusing on billing, there are major savings that can be made if you can address billing-related issues early enough. We learned how:

• CSG is working with telcos to identify billing issues using Amazon Bedrock and handle them before customers feel the need to pick up a phone – Generative AI-powered billing experiences;
• TELUS and ng-voice are improving IMS deployment through the use of a maintenance chatbot powered by AWS generative AI- Generative AI for cloud-native IMS operations, with TELUS;
• Orange is achieving CAPEX reduction by streamlining the deployment of network functions with Self-driven automated networks
• LG U+ delivered cost optimization through threshold-based scaling when creating an elastic 5G network LG U+ smart-scaling of 5G core network.
• SKT drove the innovative architecture of Roaming Edge on AWS with Samsung Electronics Cloud-Native 5G Core Network Functions on Amazon EKS, and a new PDN-Gateway User Plane (PGW-U) deployed in AWS Global Regions to provide an optimal routing path for roaming.
• Amdocs and FieldForce are showcasing the network end-to-end lifecycle management, from network rollout to NOC/SOC operations, with Amdocs Intelligent Networking Suite on AWS using AWS generative AI to detect, resolve, and prevent incidents.

Digitizing industries

In industries including agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, travel, and entertainment, telcos are helping companies transform how they do business by embracing digital solutions. In this series of AWS demos, experts and partners revealed how AWS Integrated Private Wireless program, mobile edge computing, digital twins, 5G, and AWS generative AI are helping to optimize costs, reduce time to market, meet sustainability objectives, and create new revenue streams.

One of the highlights was the Transforming Agriculture with 5G and MEC demo, a collaboration between TELUS, RedHat, Beyondnow and Intraway showing how the agricultural industry can improve precision farming by integrating 5G and AWS generative AI services. TELUS is making it easy for companies in the AgTech sector to find the best solutions, by providing off-the-shelf monetization opportunities, and creating a marketplace where they can connect with manufacturers, telcos, agronomists, and retailers.

Smart technology also featured heavily in other demos where AWS experts revealed how, Jabil improved defect detection in its manufacturing process through smart defect detection in manufacturing and attendees learned how Snowflake and AWS are enabling smarter network implementation with smart network operations in airports by using digital twin modelling, enabling the team to visually monitor, analyze, and simulate the network architecture and performance.

Telcos will focus on exposing network capabilities through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) by unlocking information from 5G networks, giving more control over network programmability to manage areas such as quality of service and bandwidth. It’s important to consider the components needed for a network API, including computing power, storage, databases, and machine learning capabilities needed to give the developers an enhanced experience to support.

Illustrated by

• Secured digital identity using network APIs for fintech, Axiata Digital Labs and leading Indonesian telcos enabled secure and easy onboarding improving conversion rates and monetization opportunities in fintech;
• Secure digital identity using network APIs for media and entertainment, Claro Brazil demonstrated how it is empowering developers and enhancing customer experience by reducing the friction around subscriber verification when making in-app purchases and by automating the process that would usually involve additional interaction with SMS one-time passwords;
• Connected Hospital powered by Celona’s IPW, T-Mobile and Celona were empowering hospital staff via an Integrated Private Wireless (IPW) on AWS
• Monetizing surveillance in a port’s private 5G network Verizon working with Totogi to monetize surveillance within a port’s private 5G network
• Transforming healthcare with immersive gaming, Verizon teamed up with Level Ex to enable better medical education through immersive gaming. Al powered by tools such as Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s partner and developer ecosystem.

Reimaging consumer experience

Uninterrupted quality of experience (QoE) is one of the key expectations for telco customers, with gaming being a primary use case. According to one study, 79 percent of gamers now play on mobile devices, which makes ensuring a streamlined experience a priority for CSPs, as unresolved device issues will negatively affect customer metrics such as net promoter score (NPS).

In a demo, enhancing consumer interaction with generative AI leveraging MCE generative AI, from NVIDIA, Vodafone, MCE, and Mavenir showcased a consumer journey that included device and network support for latency sensitive applications using AWS Wavelength to achieve the required QoE powered device care. For network support they used NVIDIA’s DGX platform on AWS and Mavenir to get root cause analysis of network degradation in real time using AWS generative AI service.

Elsewhere, AWS continued its smart home collaboration with TELUS from 2023, expanding the scope of smart living to providing wellness solutions for seniors’ with the interactive home of the future. This demo featured the next phase of SmartHome+, integrating AWS generative AI, AWS IoT Core, and Alexa Voice Services. Presenting a more personalized, responsive smart home environment, which can learn and adapt across various device platforms.

Learn more about AWS next level presence at MWC24.