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Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 welcomed over 100,000 attendees, 2,700+ exhibitors, sponsors and partners, and 1,100 speakers and thought leaders, to explore industry topics including AI, monetization opportunities, and the transformative power of the cloud for telcos.

This event is about providing a glimpse into the future and demonstrating how AI, 5G and APIs are unlocking new possibilities, thanks to collaborative initiatives like GSMA Open Gateway, said Mats Granryd, director general at GSMA.

AWS shared a number of customer and partner announcements across generative AI, network APIs, 5G, and network transformation. Attendees also saw firsthand how AWS innovations can transform telcos, digitize industries, and reimagine consumer experiences through the 20+ demos at the AWS next level. Watch the AWS next level recap video.

Here are a few highlights from AWS at MWC 2024.

Telcos are looking to artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and generative AI to streamline costs and efficiencies, enable better customer engagement, and drive innovative new offerings. With enterprise-grade security and privacy, a choice of leading foundation models, a data-first approach, and the most performant, low-cost infrastructure, telcos trust AWS to deliver everything they need to accelerate generative AI powered innovation.

At MWC 2024, there were more 40 sessions that focused on AI, with many noting that generative AI is on the verge of transforming the way we live, work, and interact. BT Group announced that it deployed Amazon Qs coding companion (Amazon CodeWhisperer) to provide generative AI coding assistance to its software engineers. The solution is already providing 15-20 suggestions of code per active user per day for BT Group, with an acceptance rate of 37% by its software engineers who are using the platform. This is a great example of the value, efficiency, and support generative AI can offer.

Tele2 announced it is using AWS to launch an Internet of Things (IoT) customer support solution, powered by Amazon Bedrock. The solution is designed using AWS services and will help Tele2 IoT customer support agents to provide faster and more detailed conversational responses to IoT customer inquiries across multiple channels.

Central to the shift of telecom operators into future-ready organizations is the embrace of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). McKinsey estimated the network API market could unlock around $100-300 billion in revenue for operators over the next 5-7 years, stemming from connectivity and edge computing, while generating an additional $10-30 billion from APIs themselves. The GSMA Open Gateway initiative was announced at MWC 2023 with the support of 21 mobile network operators and cloud providers, including AWS. Since then, Open Gateway has expanded to 47 operators, attracting developers to build innovative use cases and applications, using APIs that expose unique characteristics of the networks.

In the run up to MWC 2024, AWS announced it is working alongside global telcos including Verizon, Telefnica, T-Mobile, Orange, and Liberty Global, to offer telco network APIs to AWS developers. These developers already use thousands of AWS APIs from over 240 AWS services, and they can access telco network APIs to reach more developers and customers through AWS Marketplace. We have AWS applications in financial services, gaming, and immersive experiences being built using telco APIs, and will be adding more operators globally, as we get adoption.

5G Future Forum (5GFF) members, including Telstra, Verizon, Vodafone, Rogers, America Movil, KT, and Bell Canada, in collaboration with AWS, released a whitepaper defining the role of bi-directional APIs between telco and cloud providers in advancing multi-edge computing (MEC) infrastructure integration and applications.

Vonage announced a collaboration with AWS to accelerate the availability of new solutions, with an anti-fraud solution as the first one. AWS generative AI services will enhance the solutions fraud detection capabilities, enabling businesses to better protect themselves from mobile fraud while improving the customer experience.

Telcos across the world are leveraging cloud to transform their networks so they can take advantage of the clouds economics, scale, and agility. This allows them to focus on whats most important transforming telcos core networks, monetizing their investments, digitizing industries, reimagining the consumer experience, and increasing resilience and security.

NTT DOCOMO, Japans leading mobile operator with more than 89 million subscribers, selected AWS to commercially deploy its nationwide 5G Open Radio Access Network (RAN) in Japan. DOCOMO will use AWS to deploy Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service Anywhere, a container management software, at its 5G Open RAN to simplify network operations with automated cluster management tools. AWS is supporting NTT DOCOMO in developing its 5G Core on AWS that is running in a hybrid cloud environment.

TELUS announced a new collaboration with Samsung Electronics and AWS that will see Telus become the first telecommunications provider in North America to evolve the architecture of roaming, enabling greater reliability and faster speeds for customers traveling abroad. Meanwhile, in Europe, Swiss telecom operator Sunrise Business announced it is working with AWS to accelerate the cloudification of Swiss small to medium-sized enterprises.

In Latin America, Beyond ONE/Virgin Mobile announced it is working with AWS to drive growth and innovation in the regions telecommunications sector. Virgin Mobile will use a combination of AWS Regions and AWS hybrid cloud offeringsincluding AWS Outposts and AWS Local Zonesto modernize the Beyond One stack and mark a significant step forward in cloud adoption and digital transformation in the region.

Read more about our other announcements below.

AWS promotes diversity in technology and supports organizations empowering women to pursue tech careers. According to GSMA, MWC 2024 attracted 26% of female attendees, and of the 1,100 speakers, 40% of them were female. This year, AWS hosted a panel discussion on opportunities and challenges women in the telecom industry face and reinforced our commitment to diversity across the telecom ecosystem during our AWS executive reception.

At MWC 2024, AWS showcased 20+ demos across three main themes:

1/ Transforming Telcos These demos focused on the network cloudification journey of CSPs (across RAN, Core, IMS and OSS/BSS) through unified automation, orchestration and generative AI toolchain, resulting in new growth opportunities, reduced OPEX, increased sustainability, and enhanced resiliency. Watch the recap:

2/ Digitizing industries Innovative industry use cases in this demo area showcased how AWS is supporting leading telcos to help digitize industries like healthcare, manufacturing, travel and hospitality, and financial services. This is done through reinventing connectivity and introducing new business models (via private network solutions, network APIs, public MEC, etc.). Watch the recap:

3/ Reimagining consumer experience The demos in this area showcased some of the innovative solutions AWS is developing with telcos and leading ISVs to engage consumers in a more exciting, personalized, and smart way.

Did you attend MWC 2024? Leave your top telco takeaways and predictions for 2024 in the comments section of this post. Follow AWS for Telecom to see highlights from the event this year and to stay up to date with our latest news.

See you at Mobile World Congress 2025!

General

Generative AI

Network Transformation

Network Monetization

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Event Recap - AWS Blog