Telecompetitor is tracking vendor announcements about tools for broadband service providers and broadband networks that use artificial intelligence (AI) and tools intended to address AI traffic. From time to time, we’ll share the details of those new offerings in a single article. Here is the first one.
Broadcom: The company has announced what it says is the industry’s first Wi-FI 8 access point and switch that is built with a unified architecture for AI-ready networks. The platform builds on the company’s Wi-Fi 8 radios, which were launched last October, and a new accelerated processing unit chip, the BCM49438. The company says that the new APU is designed to optimize wireless networking and AI acceleration at the enterprise edge.
Broadcom also introduced an enterprise switch platform powered by the new BCM56390 Trident X3+ Ethernet switch. It features the company’s multiple-gigabit PHY and power-over-Ethernet (PoE) power sourcing equipment.
Calix: The next iteration of Calix One brings the various areas the company serves — appliances, cloud software, AI-powered agents and managed services — into a single unified platform. The company says that the product, which is delivered to broadband service providers through an enterprise digital workforce framework, simplifies agentic-driven business and operations workflow transformations.
Calix One, which was introduced last October, was architected with Google Cloud. It was designed for broadband providers to operationalize agentic AI securely at scale. It lets AI agents work natively within existing workflows and makes retrofitting of agentic enterprise tools unnecessary.
Google Cloud: Google Cloud used the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to provide an update new approaches and enhancements to its Cloud Spanner Graph and Vertex AI to make it possible for broadband networks to use agentic AI more efficiently.
The Google Cloud platform now supports network digital twins, a unified graph data layer, and real-time predictions with Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) in Vertex AI. Google Cloud also introduced approaches aimed at removing bottlenecks.
GSMA: GSMA has launched Open Telco AI, which it describes as a broadband industry initiative to accelerate telco-level AI. It advocates collaboration across operators, vendors, AI developers and academic institutions. The effort includes a new portal.
Commentary in the press release says that AI models are advancing but at the same time are underperforming on telecom-specific tasks. The press release describes why this is happening and concludes that only 16% of telecommunications companies’ Generative AI deployments have been applied to network operations. Open Telco AI is supported by AT&T and AMD.
Infracom Telecom: uni|MSTM is an AI-enabled platform that enables autonomous operations, according to Infracom Telecom. The company says that it can be used to define outcomes that are needed across a wide variety of tasks, including validating a rollout, optimizing network segments, or preventing service disruptions.
uni|MSTM can automatically orchestrate diagnostics, performance analytics and proactive interventions. The platform does this by consolidating complex data streams, prioritizing issues, predicting problems and delivering real-time insights. This enables teams to react decisively and efficiently. The end goal, according to Infracom Telecom, is better service and lower operational expenses.
Lumen Technologies: The Multi-Cloud Gateway (MCGW), which Lumen Technologies is deploying across its network in major U.S. markets, aims to move AI-generated data quickly and securely across clouds, data centers, and distributed locations.
The MCGW is an element of the company’s shift to cloud-based telecom. It is a software-defined self-service routing layer on Lumen’s global fiber network that provides private connectivity among clients, which include enterprises, hyperscalers, and emerging cloud platforms. The target organizations are rich in data and include financial services, retail, healthcare, and manufacturing.
Render Networks: ClearWay is an agentic AI architecture that provides dynamic, scalable execution for broadband networks, according to Render. The platform “operates across a federated system of specialized agents” that operate autonomously within strict identity, policy and audit controls. As agents are introduced, the system “supports progressively higher levels of autonomy” that are “bounded by deterministic guardrails derived from user-defined operational policies.”
The first release of Clearway will feature the assurance agent and the approval agent. The former “(v)alidates field-captured evidence against planned work in real-time.” The latter autonomously approves work based on a correlation of work type, planned vs. actual units, photos, and test results, according to the press release.
Tata Communications: The company’s suite of three independent but complementary offerings are Tata Communications IZO+ Multi Cloud Network, Tata Communications Edge Distribution Platform, and ThreadSpan.
The Tata Communications IZO+ Multi Cloud Network removes “friction” — complexity and cost — to give organizations control over how data moves and performs and how much it costs. The Tata Communications Edge Distribution Platform combines with content delivery, security, and edge computing to bring intelligence closer to users. ThreadSpan provides a unified and single-pane view across hybrid and multi-vendor networks, the company says.
VIAVI Solutions: The company’s fiber test head for distributed acoustic sensing (FTH-DAS) that is aimed at enhancing its NITRO Fiber Sensing platform. The new system is a true-phase DAS interrogator for broadband networks that includes an embedded AI and machine learning engine.
The company says the FTH-DAS is designed for the network edge and enables multi-event detection and localization with real event classification across multiple fibers directly on the device.
ZTE Corp.: The company’s nubia M153 with Doubao AI Assistant is an AI-native phone that deeply integrates AI at the hardware, software, and wider ecosystem, according to ZTE. The goal, the company said in its MWC press release, is to provide an agentic and symbiotic experience that understands enough to grow with the user.
An example of the number M153 with Doubao AI Assist is a single voice command on booking a trip or restaurant reservation. The device would trigger the device to autonomously navigate apps to handle the entire process including searches, comparisons, booking and mapping the route.
The company also introduced the companion iMoochi. It features “a furry, cloud-soft texture and soulful eyes” and is capable of “rich, multi-modal interactions.”
