5 Cellular Network Trends to Look Out for in 2024

Hana Gazoli   January 8, 2024

Another year has gone by and even though the mobile telecoms industry is over 30 years old, it continues to evolve without showing any signs of slowing down. The industry entered 2023 with expectations for 5G, openness and collaboration, IOT, private networks and virtual universes.  As we start the new year, this is a good opportunity to look ahead to some of the trends that will shape the industry in 2024.

Power consumption: Do more with less

In 2024 operators will continue to explore ways to significantly reduce emissions, carbon footprint and energy bills, as there are clear commercial, regulatory and social responsibility reasons. The regulatory pressures are mounting, as target dates to meet reduction goals approach. As extreme weather events, evidence of climate change, become more catastrophic, energy-consuming, emission-heavy corporations (like mobile network operators) who aren’t making serious efforts to become greener run the risk of a major public relations crisis. Meanwhile, the benefits that a ‘green campaign’ can have on an operator’s position in the market are increasing in value, as ESG-minded shareholders and stockholders become sensitive about where their money lies.

The cost factor, however, is by far the most compelling reason for MNOs to run more efficiently. Even if energy prices weren’t rising as dramatically as they are, simply modernizing the existing network to support 5G will result in a radical spike in power consumption. To avoid a painful blow to their bottom line, operators will have to seek improvements across the board. What will they focus on? Energy-efficient equipment, renewable energy sources, optimized performance and an energy conscious architecture. How will that impact the way they do business? Procurement will have to factor energy efficiency rating into their matrix. Network architects will have to optimize and centralize the computing resources rather than spreading them out and duplicating them. Operations managers will prioritize control plane solutions that embed energy efficiency in their decision making. And CTOs will need to look closely at innovative solutions that make micro-improvements in transmission, uptime, spectrum usage and anything else. The freedom to innovate by mix-and-matching solutions will be more important than ever.

Dramatically improving energy efficiency is not just a feature, it must become an operational philosophy. Energy costs are going up and they won’t come down anytime soon. MNOs are expected to investigate every opportunity to become leaner and greener.

Smart networks are becoming more intelligent

It’s hard to make any technological, commercial or even cultural prediction for 2024 without considering the impact of AI. In the mobile telecom industry, there is plenty of room to optimize with the help of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. In the near future, there are a few areas where we expect to see a lot of activity:

• Network Automation - Automation guided by AI can help operators optimize performance in a variety of ways that will improve their KPIs and reduce TCO, such as Zero-Touch Provisioning. Powered by the RIC, which will be able to collect and make available huge amounts of data, operators can reduce OPEX as well as downtime by detecting network issues immediately and automating the responses to them in real time, thereby decreasing manual intervention. This will be very important as operators start to promote the high-bandwidth, low-latency capabilities of 5G.
• User Experience - Machine learning will be used to track usage patterns across vast amounts of input, allowing it to generate insights about network quality and the user experience by leveraging, among other things, the concept of crowdsourcing. Powered by these insights, the networks can anticipate and even predict when and where the experience may be degraded, and preemptively direct efforts to resolve the issues.
• Efficiency - The introduction of 5G brings with it abilities such as Network Slicing, Traffic Steering and support for Massive MIMO, all of which rely on AI/ML to optimize the high-volume of decisions that need to be made in real-time. Improvements in energy efficiency are achieved by selectively powering down and powering up components based on patterns and AI predictions.

That being said, for AI to deliver the desired benefits, open networks and APIs will need to be embraced. The data which will feed the models has to be easily reconciled between cellular network entities, databases and applications of different vendors. The pressures across the industry to practice more openness will increase in 2024.

More open on more levels

In 2024 the mobile telecom industry, as a whole, will fully recognize the advantages of openness. Driven by the perfect storm of a desperate need to reduce costs, a practical need for flexibility and a competitive need for the freedom to innovate, operators will slowly but surely demand that the vendors they select will support open standards and interfaces. There is simply too much financial and operational benefit from the interoperability between best in class radio units and advanced DUs. Open architecture and open interfaces such as Open RAN allow operators to efficiently incorporate off-the-shelf components into their network under their overall management and orchestration systems.

The deployment of 5G requires more equipment to gain the additional capacity and bandwidth. Under these circumstances, and with the growing application of AI, operators are prioritizing automation. Adopting an open infrastructure, with open interfaces between different vendors and components, is the best way for operators to enable it.

Other open interface initiatives target the levels of the services and the user experience. Support of common northbound service APIs, part of the GSMA Open Gateway framework, will allow service providers to launch more quickly.

The pendulum of technology trends in the telecommunications industry has sufficiently moved from proprietary, vertically integrated towards open, broad interoperability.

An evolving approach to clouds

The role of the cloud in technology and information systems has grown consistently over the last decade. Recently, operators have started to rely more on cloud architectures for the operation of the networks themselves. For organizations that had spent decades building and nurturing physical infrastructure, there was a reluctance to rely on anything virtual.

As 5G networks take root, MNOs looking to leverage 5G will absorb components and functions into the cloud to save CAPEX and OPEX while pushing the cloud closer to the edge.

The holy grail will be an optimized, unified cloud-edge architecture, enabling the deployment of microservices and containers at the network’s edge as necessary. In network management, this is exemplified by centralizing the Non-RT RIC and rApps in the cloud, while pushing the Near-RT RIC.

Network sharing that benefits everyone

The motivation for sharing is clear; the mobile communications market has largely reached saturation in many countries. For most operators, generating new revenue will be expensive.

In 2023 network sharing deals were announced across the globe, and these demonstrate that MNOs are realizing that a pragmatic approach to network ownership is crucial to sustain profitability. The nature of sharing varies from one deal to the other; what is being shared (equipment, network infrastructure or spectrum) is dependent on the technology and areas involved.

Some advancements in technology are key reasons that 2024 will see a marked increase in sharing. The progress in the field of interoperable solutions with open interfaces has made it possible to shake loose of proprietary solutions.

Regulators can also be expected to show more support for sharing as the benefits are clear. The agreements prevented costly, bothersome infrastructure duplication without reducing the intensity of competition between operators.

Even for an industry as massive as mobile communications, the velocity of these technological advances is certain to make the incoming year an exciting one. Skeptics may point out adoption will take time, but some innovations are speeding up the actual rate of innovation, creating a whirlwind of opportunity and threats. Have a great new year!