Infovista welcomes the results of a new industry survey by TM Forum on the use and benefits of automation of tasks and processes at different stages of the 5G network lifecycle.

For the first time, the global survey reveals the progress CSPs are making towards the Network Lifecycle Automation (NLA) blueprint and the expected or realized benefits when implementing this new systems approach.

While 92% of respondents said their investment in 5G networks over the past five years has paid off, 87% of telcos surveyed acknowledged that their new network assets could be deployed in a more efficient and optimized way, with only 14% % of respondents feel they are making the most of their investments.

Few telecom operators are completely satisfied with the timing of deploying 5G networks, with 58% of respondents believing that their 5G network deployment strategy is taking longer than executing. 86% of respondents even said that due to business, technical and commercial barriers, these benefits have taken too long to materialize, or have yet to bear fruit.

The report makes it clear that in the face of increasing network and service complexity, many CSPs are looking to automate tasks and processes at different stages of the network lifecycle to maximize the return on 5G investments while accelerating deployment and realizing revenue maximize.

To that end, TM Forum's report, "Automation of the Network Lifecycle: Can CSPs Optimize 5G Investments?" details the numerous hurdles and unprecedented levels of complexity that CSPs face when planning, deploying, and optimizing their 5G networks.

CSPs are forced to manage vast amounts of data about business, technology, process and product performance, creating a noisy environment that is difficult to manage, navigate and improve from start to finish.

When asked about their top priorities for unlocking to maximize the return on their 5G network investment, CSPs identified the following three top priorities:

• Establish a common automation platform (42%) between planning, deploying and operating systems.
• Accurately link planning, configuration, testing and operations to customer experience (33%).
• Build cloud-native technologies and/or find vendors with cloud-native solutions (30%).

According to the TM Forum report, these CSP priorities can be addressed by:

• Introduce new cross-stage processes that automate tasks and workflows across multiple applications in network planning, testing and deployment, and automated assurance and operations.
• Shift these operational functions from one-off activities to continuously improving lifecycle management processes.
• Provides disjointed but related teams such as network planning, deployment, operations and revenue management with a shared view of their responsibilities, processes, tasks and outcomes.
• Create data feedback loops between these operational functions to drive collaboration, observability, and continuous optimization.

In the TM Forum report, under the name Network Lifecycle Automation (NLA), this new, systematic approach to implementing multi-phase and multi-silo automation use cases has been implemented by 62% of CSPs surveyed.

As described in this report, TM Forum members are working on a number of individual elements of NLA, including: AI-based automated network planning; flow-through network construction; automated network configuration/build/enablement; automated end-to-end network testing/validation; manual Intelligent operations predictive and preventive operations; AI-based cross-domain event correlation; zero-touch provisioning; self-healing and self-optimizing networks; cognitively intelligent field operations; unifying network and IT operations; and continuous monitoring and monitoring through flexible delivery processes and tools Improve automation.

Dean Ramsay, Principal Analyst at TM Forum, said: "Communications service providers continue to invest aggressively in the rollout of 5G networks and are now finding they must better optimize planning, deployment and operations to meet ambitious ROI expectations.

Our global survey of CSP intent clearly shows that many are turning to network lifecycle automation as a new systematic approach to multi-phase and multi-silo automation use cases. Operations leaders are now looking to expand the scope of automation in a systematic manner across the entire network lifecycle as a way to increase productivity and performance at a lower cost.

Due to the urgency of expanding and improving 5G networks, NLA can be applied to a variety of use cases directly related to CSPs. According to the survey, the most pressing hurdles to remove are higher capex due to inefficient capex allocation (29%) and slower-than-expected rollout due to difficulty building a business case (27%).

Reflecting this, the priority areas identified by CSPs for network lifecycle automation are:

• Optimize network planning for maximum ROI (61%) by combining operational data about quality of experience with network data about performance.
• Use test data to optimize planning forecasts and planning data to optimize testing (18%).