The telecommunications sector views maintenance of existing equipment, such a portable towers, as an important function on which to focus, with the dual goal of improving performance and reducing running costs.

Furthermore, telecommunications services providers need to be able to efficiently monitor their own equipment and infrastructures, in particular, data centre servers, in order to ensure safe and reliable networks.

Maintenance, however, means not only repairs following breakdowns or precariousness of any kind, but also breakdown prevention.

The role of AI in anticipative maintenance

Today more than ever before, so-called “anticipative maintenance” really makes the difference. It allows businesses to forecast the moment when equipment breakdowns may occur, thus avoided, or at least, reducing them to a minimum rate.

In these instances, artificial intelligence occupies a central role and can assist business in actually conducting effective anticipative maintenance.

Artificial intelligence can indeed not only analyse data collected but can also elaborate the data to create reliable forecasts of possible malfunctions.

Thus, businesses can take action before instances of damage actually occur, substantially reducing maintenance costs and avoiding network performance failures with consequential disruption for users.

The increase in AI use for optimising networks

Moreover, artificial intelligence can assist telecommunications providers in creating SONs, which provide operators with the possibility of automatically optimising the quality of their networks based on information related to traffic, time zones and geographical regions.

This, in turn, allows businesses to optimise their warehoused items, making orders based on forecast requirements and delivery times.

Forecasts for growth and vulnerabilities

Anticipative maintenance and SON bring with them an increased use of AI systems, with very positive knock-on effects for the AI market.

The global AI telecommunications sector is forecast to register an CAGR of nearly 47% by 2023, according to a report by Technavio analysts.

This is a positive trend for the AI market and satellite activities, but is threatened however by lack of technical experience in the workforce.

Companies which implement AI will, in fact, have to possess in-depth knowledge of AI software platform functioning and of the periodical maintenance required in order to guarantee normal working order.

A lack of technical skills may negatively influence the demand for AI in the telecommunications sector.

For further information, please read the complete report here.