Top 5 Posts for 2025

Every year, it is useful to pause and look back at what actually resonated with readers rather than what we expected to perform well. In 2025, Operator Watch Blog crossed a significant milestone with more than 500 posts published and over half a million views in a single year. What stood out most was not a specific technology or operator narrative, but the continued appetite for country-level analysis of mobile markets.

Perhaps surprisingly, posts focused on national operator landscapes and market dynamics dominated the readership charts. This reinforces a long-held view that understanding local context, regulation, competition and rollout realities remains just as important as tracking global technology trends.

The top five posts for 2025 were:

1. Malaysia Builds Momentum in 5G and Mobile Growth, May 2025
2. Rogers, Bell, Telus… and Freedom? Mapping the Future of Canadian Mobile, Apr 2025
3. How South Africa’s Mobile Operators Are Shaping the Future of Connectivity, Apr 2025
4. Iran Overcoming Barriers to Launch 4G and 5G, Jun 2022
5. Rising Demand and Competition in Algeria’s Mobile Sector, Jun 2025

What makes this list particularly interesting is that four of the five posts were published in 2025 itself. This suggests that readers are actively engaging with current developments rather than relying only on evergreen reference material. The continued popularity of the Iran post, first published in 2022, also highlights how difficult markets with unique regulatory and geopolitical challenges can attract long-term interest.

Looking beyond this year, the all-time top three posts on Operator Watch Blog remain:

1. Egypt Mobile Network Operators Overview, Feb 2020
2. How many 5G Cell Towers and Base Stations Worldwide?, Aug 2020
3. Rakuten details its Open RAN and Innovation Journey, Feb 2020

These older posts reflect a different phase of the industry, when early 5G rollouts, Open RAN experimentation and baseline operator overviews were front of mind. Their continued popularity shows that foundational analysis still has a place alongside newer market updates.

As Operator Watch Blog moves forward, the lesson from 2025 is clear. Readers value grounded, country-specific insight that connects strategy, regulation and real-world deployment. With mobile markets evolving at very different speeds across the globe, this kind of perspective will remain essential in the years ahead.

If you are a regular reader, thank you for your continued support and for taking the time to read, share and engage with the posts. And if you have only recently discovered the blog, welcome. Your interest and curiosity are what keep Operator Watch Blog evolving and focused on what really matters in the mobile industry.

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Telefonica’s Journey Towards End-to-End Autonomous Networks

At Mobile Europe’s The Briefing event in October, Jose María Ramón Pardo, Autonomous Networks and AI Senior Manager at Telefonica, shared how the company is building the foundations for truly autonomous networks. His presentation offered a clear picture of why automation is no longer optional for operators and how Telefonica is reshaping its operations to meet rising expectations across efficiency, agility and customer experience.

He began by setting out the reality for major operators today. Networks are growing in complexity and customers expect faster services, better reliability and more sustainable operations. At the same time, operators face pressure to support new business models and new digital services. Fortunately, the industry is benefiting from cloud native architectures and software driven networks, which make advanced automation and AI techniques far easier to apply than in the past.

Telefonica describes its evolution in three broad phases. The first phase involved building a basic automation foundation, mainly using rule based systems, device level scripting and early machine learning. Progress was held back by monolithic architectures and vendor dependency, which limited the scale of automation that was possible. The second phase marked the beginning of the company’s Autonomous Network Journey programme, which introduced data driven processes, orchestration, the first closed loop systems and centres of excellence for AI. Machine learning became part of day to day operations, although intelligence was still limited.

Telefonica is now in the phase it calls hyper automation. The company is accelerating its autonomous network ambitions by embedding AI directly into network platforms and operational processes. It is deploying generative AI, digital twins and agent based systems, while investing in the knowledge bases required to support more context aware intelligence. The goal is to enable networks that can plan, adjust, repair and optimise with minimal human intervention.

The Autonomous Network Journey programme brings these efforts together across four dimensions. The first covers the physical network and the shift to open architecture, virtualisation, cloudification and data centre consolidation, along with the retirement of legacy technologies such as 3G and copper. The second dimension is known as the brain, which focuses on the automation platform that manages data, orchestration, knowledge and decision making. The third involves adapting processes along the full service lifecycle, from planning through to operations, to take advantage of autonomous capabilities. The fourth dimension is people, covering skills, culture, organisational structures and new ways of working.

Telefonica tracks its progress using KPIs that include the TM Forum autonomy levels to benchmark maturity across domains. The company has already deployed hundreds of autonomous use cases across its markets, supported by a range of AI techniques. In planning, an AI driven design solution has cut fibre planning time from 60 days to less than a week. In Germany, a large scale digital twin enables mobile site configuration changes to be simulated and optimised before any live implementation, reducing planning and analysis time significantly and helping prevent capacity issues.

Operational use cases are also demonstrating clear value. In Brazil, AI driven self healing in the 5G core detects and resolves anomalies without manual intervention and has reduced average repair times. Agent based systems allow technicians to interact with IP networks using natural language. Large language models support internal documentation queries, and generative AI is used to improve contract management and workforce efficiency.

Looking ahead, Telefonica aims to move beyond isolated use cases to an environment where automation can be delivered at scale. This requires focusing on high value use cases, ensuring the cost to deploy is justified by the expected benefit, and enhancing the automation platform so that new use cases can be rolled out consistently across all network layers. AI needs to be integrated across the full lifecycle of the network and the company continues to explore new techniques such as intelligent agents, large language models and synthetic data generation.

Telefonica is also strengthening its governance approach to ensure responsible and effective use of AI. Collaboration remains important, with partnerships across the vendor ecosystem and other operators helping to accelerate innovation.

Although AI plays a central role, the company emphasises that real transformation depends on more than AI alone. Open architectures, high quality data, knowledge representation, redesigned processes and new organisational models are all essential to make autonomous networks a reality. Automation is considered mandatory for achieving efficiency, enabling new revenue opportunities and meeting the demands of customers and society.

Telefonica’s message is clear. AI and automation are reshaping telecom operations, but success depends on a balanced strategy that combines intelligent technology with architectural readiness, robust data foundations and a workforce prepared for new ways of working. The journey is well underway, and the early results show the promise of a more autonomous network future.

His talk is embedded below:

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The Power of AI in NTT Docomo’s 5G Journey

At FutureNet Asia 2025 in Singapore, Takehiro Nakamura, Chief Standardisation Officer at NTT Docomo, delivered the closing keynote on day two of the summit. His session focused on how AI has become central to Docomo’s 5G strategy and how those developments are shaping the operator’s path towards 6G. It was a forward looking talk that connected practical achievements with the longer term vision for future networks.

Nakamura-san explained that while 5G and 6G fall within the familiar ten year generational cycle, there is also a broader twenty year technological rhythm that influences how mobile systems evolve. After voice in the first wave and mobile multimedia in the second, the third wave is centred on unlocking new business value. In Docomo’s view, the success of 5G is essential for the success of 6G, especially in enterprise services where operators hope to build new revenue streams.

AI now sits at the heart of Docomo’s capability. The operator has built its data analytics on a very large foundation, spanning data from around one hundred million customers and hundreds of thousands of base stations. By combining this scale with a wide range of AI techniques, Docomo has created applications for enhanced customer service, network optimisation, personalised services and digital transformation across both internal and external domains.

Nakamura-san described a broad AI technology stack that includes natural language processing, customer behaviour modelling, location analysis, advanced analytics and video recognition. These core capabilities feed into applications across marketing, CX, healthcare, finance, network operations and local government. One of the examples he highlighted was Docomo’s LLM value added platform, designed to address security, reliability and safety concerns while offering a user friendly interface for internal teams and partners.

Another focus area is customer understanding through a platform known as Docomo Sense. By analysing subscriber information alongside online and offline behavioural data, the operator can segment customers with much higher precision. This supports personalised services, targeted marketing and new business creation. Nakamura-san shared a successful use case with Audi Japan, where Docomo’s segmentation helped the automaker reach customers with a strong interest in electric vehicles. The result was a significant increase in dealership visit rates and a notable rise in new customer engagement.

Docomo has also embedded AI deeply within its network operations. Silent hardware failures, which previously were often discovered only after customer complaints, can now be detected proactively. AI also enables early identification of device related issues that arise from complex interactions between specific hardware and spectrum conditions. This allows the operator to act before performance degradation becomes visible to subscribers.

Looking ahead to 6G, Nakamura-san emphasised that AI must be native to the design of future networks. AI will optimise the network while the network itself will be designed to serve AI driven applications. This mutual reinforcement is central to Docomo’s AI centric network concept. The ambition is to reduce human error, minimise outages, improve resilience in disaster prone environments and maximise customer experience.

Docomo is collaborating globally on 6G research, including work with Nokia and SK Telecom on an AI native interface. One promising line of research is pilotless transmission. Today’s radio systems use pilot signals to estimate channel conditions, but these signals create overhead. By applying AI on both the transmitter and receiver sides, Docomo tested the feasibility of reducing or eliminating pilots. In indoor trials, static measurements showed immediate gains due to the removal of pilot overhead, while dynamic measurements also delivered positive results despite channel fluctuations. Nakamura-san stressed that more trials are needed across different environments, but the early findings indicate strong potential for efficiency improvements in 6G.

As he concluded, Nakamura-san reinforced that progress in both 5G and 6G will depend on collaboration across the industry, particularly with partners that possess deep expertise in AI. Docomo sees AI as an essential tool for building resilient, efficient and high performing networks and is preparing for a future where AI permeates every layer of the system.

His talk is embedded below:

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5G, Mergers and Momentum in Thailand’s Mobile Sector

Data from GSMA Intelligence shows that Thailand had 99.5 million cellular mobile connections at the beginning of 2025. It is common for people to maintain more than one mobile connection, so the number of connections often exceeds the total population. Someone might have one SIM for personal use while relying on another for work, and the rise of eSIMs has made it easier to manage multiple profiles on a single device.

According to GSMA Intelligence, the number of mobile connections in Thailand was equal to 139 percent of the population in January 2025. Trend data shows that connections grew by 734 thousand, or 0.7 percent, between early 2024 and the start of 2025.

All mobile connections in Thailand now qualify as broadband, meaning they operate on 3G, 4G or 5G networks. This does not necessarily mean they use cellular data, as some subscriptions are limited to voice and SMS. Broadband figures therefore should not be interpreted as a direct indicator of mobile internet usage.

Thailand’s mobile market has undergone rapid change in recent years, driven by consolidation and fast-advancing 5G adoption. AIS, DTAC and True remain the sector’s most recognised names, although the competitive landscape has shifted significantly following the merger of DTAC and True.

AIS is Thailand’s largest mobile operator by revenue. At the end of 2024 it held around 49 percent of the revenue market share, underscoring its dominance in financial performance. By mid-2025 AIS had close to 46 million mobile subscribers, making it a formidable competitor in terms of scale as well.

The company has been at the forefront of 5G deployment. AIS continues to expand coverage while also working on innovative monetisation models. One example is its “5G Mode” offerings, which are tailored for heavy users such as gamers and live streamers who require superior performance. AIS has also been active in acquiring new spectrum, such as the 2100 MHz and 2300 MHz bands, to strengthen its 5G capacity.

Beyond mobile, AIS is reinforcing its presence in fixed broadband through acquisitions such as 3BB, which allows it to bundle services across mobile, internet, and entertainment.

Before merging with True, DTAC was Thailand’s third-largest mobile operator. It served millions of customers and competed on both pricing and service innovation. DTAC’s merger with True in 2023 fundamentally reshaped the market by consolidating customer bases and resources into a much larger entity. 

Although DTAC as a standalone brand has largely been absorbed into True, its legacy remains important for understanding the current market balance. The merger created a powerful player capable of challenging AIS more directly, both in subscriber numbers and infrastructure investment.

True Corporation is now a much larger operator following its merger with DTAC. By mid-2025 the combined company reported around 48.5 million subscribers, making it the largest provider in Thailand by customer base.

True has also taken a strong lead in 5G coverage. By early 2025 it reported 93 percent nationwide 5G coverage, giving it a significant advantage in terms of network reach. To sustain this lead, True continues to acquire spectrum across multiple frequency bands, ensuring both urban and rural areas gain access to next-generation mobile services.

The operator also pursues a convergence strategy, bundling mobile services with broadband, pay-TV, and digital content. This approach helps it to strengthen customer loyalty and increase average revenue per user.

Together, AIS and True (with DTAC now integrated) dominate Thailand’s mobile sector. AIS leads in revenue share, while True edges ahead in subscriber numbers and 5G coverage. The rivalry between these two giants is shaping the pace of 5G rollout, the quality of mobile services, and the innovation in bundled offerings across the country.

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Building and Scaling AI the Cloud Native Way at Singtel

At FutureNet Asia 2025, Vinod Joseph, Vice President for Cloud, AI and Enterprise Architecture at Singtel Group, shared a deep dive into how telcos can scale AI in a cloud native manner. His talk moved beyond the buzz around generative AI and looked at the infrastructure and operational realities required for long-term success.

Vinod positioned the industry as moving into a second phase of AI adoption. The early phase focused on agents, copilots and low-code platforms. The next phase, however, demands robust systems for managing data pipelines, training and fine-tuning models, monitoring model performance and deploying AI in production environments at scale. He stressed that this shift requires not only flexible cloud environments, but also consistent engineering practices and strong governance frameworks.

A core theme of the session was the importance of avoiding proprietary lock-in. Vinod argued that as AI workloads grow, organisations need the freedom to deploy where it makes sense, whether on-premises or on public cloud, while maintaining agility and operational consistency. Kubernetes featured strongly as a foundational platform for AI workloads, offering orchestration capabilities and portability across environments.

Three open-source frameworks were highlighted as central to Singtel’s approach. Kubeflow supports the orchestration of AI and machine learning pipelines, handling key stages from model training to promotion into production. Ray helps distribute compute workloads across GPUs and servers, enabling efficient training of large-scale models where data and model components cannot fit on a single device. MLflow, meanwhile, provides experiment tracking, model registry and deployment management, simplifying lifecycle operations and improving observability.

Vinod stressed that scaling AI requires more than computational power. Efficient data handling, reproducibility, experiment lineage and reliable recovery from failures are just as important. As organisations accelerate AI adoption, these capabilities become essential not only for performance, but for cost control. Open-source tooling, he argued, is becoming increasingly competitive and offers a viable way to balance capability with economic scale.

Singtel’s perspective reflects a growing maturity in telecom AI strategy. The focus is shifting from exploration to industrialisation, from early pilots to repeatable and governable systems. With cloud native architectures, distributed computing and open frameworks at the core, the goal is to build platforms that can scale flexibly, avoid dependency on any single vendor and support the next generation of AI-driven services.

The full presentation is available below for anyone who would like to watch it:

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Madagascar’s Operators Push Ahead in the Race for Connectivity

According to GSMA Intelligence, Madagascar had around 18.2 million active cellular mobile connections at the start of 2025. It’s worth noting that many people use more than one SIM or subscription, so mobile connection counts often surpass the number of individuals in the country. Someone might carry one line for personal calls and another for work, and the growing availability of eSIMs has made juggling multiple connections even easier.

In Madagascar, however, the total number of mobile lines has not yet overtaken the population itself. GSMA estimates show that in January 2025, active connections were equivalent to 56.2% of the country’s population.

The market has still been growing at a healthy pace. Between early 2024 and early 2025, the total number of connections rose by 1.4 mil, an increase of 8.5% year on year.

Most of these lines are already broadband-capable. GSMA’s data suggests that 84.6% of connections now run on 3G, 4G, or 5G networks. That doesn’t necessarily mean all of them are used for mobile internet, though, since some subscriptions provide only voice and SMS services.

The leading mobile operators in Madagascar are Telma (Yas), Airtel, and Orange. Market shares are Yas about 50%, Orange about 30%, Airtel about 7%, and SpaceX Starlink around 10% of Madagascar’s internet market as of 2024–2025.

As of early 2025, about 6.6 million Malagasy were online, roughly 20.4% of the population, leaving about 25.8 million people offline. 4G coverage reaches roughly 71% of the population, while overall mobile signal availability sits around 92%.

The market is highly concentrated, but rivalry among the major players is pushing network upgrades. The recent entry of satellite provider Starlink is also intensifying competition, particularly for internet access in underserved areas.

Yas, previously known as Telma Madagascar until its rebranding in late November 2024, is the long-standing market leader in Madagascar’s mobile telecom sector with approximately 5 million mobile subscribers.

In mid-2020, Yas made history by launching Africa’s first commercial 5G service in Antananarivo and Toamasina, in partnership with Ericsson. but broader rollout remains limited with only about 7% of the population having 5G access by 2025. Although the regulator ARTEC later raised technical and permission issues that temporarily delayed further 5G expansion, Yas continues to invest in its core network and fibre infrastructure, positioning itself for future advanced mobile deployments.

Airtel Madagascar is firmly positioned in second place in subscriber count, with around 4.9 million users. 

In May 2025, the company secured a forward-looking 15-year global operating license valued at $32.5 million, reinforcing its commitment to long-term infrastructure development and service expansion. In 2021, Airtel divested its passive tower infrastructure in Madagascar to Helios Towers for about $52 million, using the proceeds to reduce debt and fund improvements in its network and sales footprint. While Airtel has not publicly announced a 5G rollout plan, its strategic investments indicate reparatory groundwork for the future market shift.

Orange Madagascar holds the third-largest share of mobile subscriptions, trailing behind Yas and Airtel, with around 3.3 million customers.

In December 2023, Orange secured a €30 million comprehensive global license that empowers it to deliver services across multiple platforms, including mobile, fixed, satellite, and fiber networks. The agreement involves the deployment of up to 500 rural networking telecommunication sites under the NaaS business model in the east coast of Madagascar.

The operator planned to boost its population coverage from approximately 56 percent to 90 percent by the end of 2024, supported by a multilayered rollout of 500 new rural base stations through partnerships with NuRAN Wireless and AMN under a Network-as-a-Service model. Whether they have been successful is yet to be conformed. 

Although Orange has not yet launched full commercial 5G, it opened a local 5G Lab in September 2023 to showcase 5G technology and support co-innovations with businesses and developers.

Madagascar’s internet sector is entering a period of rapid change. Long hampered by limited coverage and fragile infrastructure, the country is now seeing fresh investment and new technologies that promise to narrow its digital divide. Mobile networks are steadily reaching deeper into rural regions, while the arrival of satellite services such as Starlink adds another layer of connectivity. Together, these shifts are setting the stage for what many describe as an internet revolution.

Currently Yas remains the dominant operator with pioneering 5G credentials. Orange is accelerating coverage expansion and pioneering 5G exploration through its innovation lab. Airtel is strengthening its position with strategic licensing and infrastructure reinvestments. For consumers in Madagascar, the immediate benefit continues to lie in improving 4G performance and wider coverage, while next-generation 5G adoption unfolds gradually.

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CelcomDigi’s Journey Toward AI-Powered Autonomous Operations for Enhanced Customer Experience

CelcomDigi is taking bold steps towards transforming its network operations with the goal of creating a fully AI-powered, autonomous environment. At FutureNet Asia 2025, the company outlined its ambition to evolve beyond traditional network management and place customer experience at the centre of its operational strategy.

As one of Malaysia’s largest operators, serving over 20 million customers and running the country’s most extensive mobile and fibre network, CelcomDigi sees network intelligence and resilience as national priorities. Mobile connectivity has become the backbone of Malaysia’s digital economy, underpinning everything from education and healthcare to e-commerce and industry. Customer expectations are now focused less on basic coverage and more on the quality of experience, whether that means smooth video streaming, consistent gaming latency or reliable digital payments.

To meet these expectations, CelcomDigi has identified three major challenges that must be addressed. The first is the growing complexity of networks as new services such as IoT, network slicing and smart industry solutions are introduced. The second is the demand for real-time responsiveness, with customers expecting zero downtime and instant performance. The third is the ongoing paradox of rising data traffic without equivalent revenue growth, which puts pressure on costs and efficiency.

CelcomDigi believes that the way forward lies in AI-driven autonomous operations. By 2028, the company aims to achieve level four autonomous operations, supported by closed-loop systems, predictive intelligence and generative AI. The transition involves moving from reactive processes towards predictive, self-diagnosing and self-healing networks that can assure customer experiences at scale.

The operator is already making progress on this roadmap. Working closely with Ericsson, CelcomDigi has deployed AI platforms that enable predictive maintenance, automated fault detection and real-time root-cause analysis. Processes that previously took hours can now be resolved in minutes, and continuous optimisation ensures 24/7 network performance. Examples already live on the network include nationwide AI-powered root-cause analysis, closed-loop traffic balancing with significant efficiency improvements, and intelligent change management that boosts success rates. Even everyday applications such as WhatsApp calls are being enhanced through AI-driven quality optimisation, reflecting how closely network performance is tied to customer experience.

These initiatives are delivering measurable results. The operator reports higher availability, fewer call drops, smoother video streaming and faster recovery times. Improvements in customer experience are also reflected in stronger satisfaction scores.

Looking ahead, CelcomDigi’s vision is a zero-touch, customer-centric network that runs seamlessly in the background. The company sees autonomous operations not only as a means of simplifying complexity and reducing costs, but also as a way to differentiate connectivity, support innovation and sustain market leadership in Malaysia’s fast-growing digital economy.

You can watch the full session in the video below. For more insights like this, make sure to follow FutureNet World, where industry leaders regularly share their strategies for the networks of tomorrow.

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