China Telecom, Huawei lead group exploring AI in networks

China Telecom and Huawei will lead a new industry working group exploring the use of AI in the deployment and optimization of telecoms networks.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute’s (ETSI) Industry Specification Group on Experiential Networked Intelligence (ISG ENI) held their first meeting last week, electing a new chair and vice chair.

Huawei UK’s Raymond Forbes has been selected as chairman and China Telecom’s Haining Wang will serve as vice-chair.

Other members of the group include Samsung, the China Academy of Telecommunications Research of MIIT, Verizon UK and Samsung R&D Institute UK.

Forbes said the purpose of the group is to “improve operators’ experience regarding network deployment and operation, by using AI techniques.”

Wang added that while SDN, NFV and network slicing technologies are helping networks become more flexible, the complexity of network management is not being reduced, but merely transferred from hardware to software. Experimental Networked Intelligence helps to address this complexity.

ETSI ENI will work with other major standards groups including ETSI NFV, ETSI MEC, ETSI NGP, IETF, MEF, 3GPP and BBF on the development of the industry specification, and is inviting new members to join the group.