Artificial Intelligence (AI) allows telecom companies to dig deeper into the customer realm and anticipate the potential of a customer becoming a buyer a product through user profiling. It helps to get a specific insight into customer behavior, therefore helping to more easily connect with the customers and personalize an offering for a higher probability of acceptance.
At the same time, data monetization and data mining strategies by leveraging subscriber’s data could help uncover new revenue generating opportunities for the company. On top of this, AI allows telecom operators to deploy intelligent networks using automation tools that automate back-end processes to decrease costs and deploy additional human capital for other value-added analytical work.
Machine Learning (ML) tools are built on algorithms and info feeds provided to the machine. These tools allow the telecom firms to gain valuable insight into the reasons why customers tend to leave any service provider, therefore lowering customer churn. It allows the telecom organization to track customer behavioral patterns and update policies to guarantee customer retention.
Industry Catalyst
In addition to the classification of traffic, anomaly detection, and network optimization and utilization, both these technologies conflate to form the basis of numerous intelligent technologies that have redefined our daily lives. A few of these developments that affect the usage of telecom networks substantially are:
- Smart Homes: AI has given shape to the concept of Smart Homes that helps remote monitoring and management of Internet-connected appliances and systems, such as lighting and heating. This provides homeowners security, comfort, convenience, and energy efficiency by allowing them to control smart devices through a smartphone app or other networked device.
- Self-Driving Cars: The growing autonomous vehicle fleet is a testament to the fact that driverless vehicles are getting closer to being a common feature on public roads. This requires seamless data connectivity and AI to control vehicle speed according to road traffic and sensitive areas to prevent any road casualties.
- Smart Cities: Improving the quality of life for residents of the city, reducing environmental impact and increasing operational efficiency are three prime factors that have led to the evolution of Smart Cities. The essence of a Smart City is connectivity, where embedded telecom infrastructure works as a mesh in which data flows seamlessly and enables tasks with the least human intervention in the smartest possible way.
Telecom Stocks To Watch
AT&T (T) is looking into AI and ML techniques to automate operations such as common call center procedures, and to analyze and correct network outages. AT&T is using AI to help make the global network more secure, self-healing and self-resilient. The company is also utilizing AI tools to improve traffic flow and manage the rapid growth of video traffic on mobile networks as it moves toward 5G technology.
Windstream Holdings, Inc. (WIN) embraced SD-WAN (software-defined wide-area network) and it has been able to roll into AI. The company has utilized SD-WAN Concierge to enable customers to set their own routing policies, based on what SLAs (service level agreements) are more important to their unique business needs. The company is providing customers unprecedented network visibility and control, such as identifying which applications are using the most bandwidth, and prioritizing how that needs to change to deliver against business and customer experience objectives.
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) is supposedly using its predictive analytics and ML algorithms to watch 3GB of data every second streaming from millions of network interfaces. The strategy has been designed to be customer-focused from the ground up in order to reduce customer dissatisfaction and ensure prompt service. On its home networks, Verizon runs automated testing on a sample of 60,000 in-home routers every two hours in order to ensure optimum speed of data connectivity.
CenturyLink, Inc. (CTL) has applied AI to automate the work of qualifying sales leads in an effort to make its human sales force more effective. This kind of sales automation is particularly effective in helping CenturyLink cost-effectively reach smaller businesses, where the revenue volumes often do not justify using a lot of human capital.
