This generative/agentic AI combo at O2 Telefónica in Germany sounds a lot like an optimized version of Microsoft’s telco‑focused NOA framework – as shown to RCR at MWC a couple of weeks back. Telefónica says its ‘network operations agent’ (NOA) tool helps with troubleshooting, diagnostics, and recommendations to improve network maintenance and performance – writes Juan Pedro. The Microsoft version, same or different, is pitched as a reference toolkit for multi-agent orchestration of network monitoring, ticketing, and remediation across OSS/BSS environments. For its part, Telefónica says its NOA solution was developed internally; for its part, Microsoft hails Telefónica for its progress with network autonomy. 

What’s my point? Well, nothing, except I am trying to join the dots – specifically and generally. Parent group Telefónica is clearly pretty good at AI – in relative terms, along with certain others. The firm has 12 level 4 use-cases for autonomous network functions across its op-cos; it will reach level 3.75 in 2028 and level 4 in 2030. It has a (AI) digital twin for network simulation and optimization scenarios, and AI tools to detect and prioritize disruptions; it is also using AI to forecast traffic at individual sites for capacity planning. So: good stuff, Telefónica. And relevant for me, having just abandoned a writeup of an MWC discussion with Ciena about whether fiber (interconnect vs longhaul vs metro) is more important than (versus) mobile right now. Yes, maybe for now – was the answer.

Which is what RCR wrote in this section repeatedly last week. But Ciena – with lots to sell and plenty to say, given a wide view and a speculative topic (coverage to follow) – sounded as magnanimous as a fiber vendor might, buried deep in Hall 2 at MWC. “The data has to leave the data center to monetize anything-AI, right – as inference moves closer to where these models are consumed. Even at the edge, it has to go out to the user… [Which] makes telcos incredibly valuable partners in this.” Ciena is selling capacity and programmability to telcos in fiber backhaul and longhaul systems, as well as OSS/BSS orchestration on mobile via Blue Planet. Mobile operators, which are fiber operators backwards of the RAN, must get AI match-fit – and fast. A Telefónica is doing – across both disciplines. 

More about this from Sulagna at OFC, too – who follows her Nokia write-up last week, about its post-Infinera pitch for the interconnect market (and new optical assets for short-reach campus interconnectivity and subsea applications) with a panel review of this scale-up/out/across trend. “Millions of links, millions of units, components, hardware; I call it the tyranny of large numbers,” said Oracle. “Things will fail; things will break.” So that network – scaling east-west in the cloud and north-south to the edge – had best be infallible and unbreakable, then. Hence: agents in network maintenance, spectrum allocation, traffic steering; dynamic on-demand slices at the edge and wavelengths in the cloud; plus as much backhaul / longhaul capacity as you shake a 800G coherent optical cable at.