At Polystar, we don't talk about problems - we talk about challenges. And when it comes to moving up the autonomous networks ladder, we've seen plenty of them firsthand. By sharing these experiences from a vendor perspective working with over 100 customers worldwide, we hope you'll recognize some familiar patterns and discover practical ways forward.
The TM Forum's autonomous networks framework - levels zero through five - has become the industry reference. But here's an interesting observation: the design of this doesn’t include how to tackle current internal process complications and doesn’t indicate how much expected investment needed in case to climb the levels of autonomy not guarantee any level of ROI .
Level five complete autonomy for example , might be mythical. We're not even sure it's achievable with today's current state of AI. But that doesn't matter at the moment. What really matters is that this framework gives us something to aspire to, a way to measure progress, and most importantly, a shared language for discussing our journey.
What we've learned from working with operators is that this model is truly multi-dimensional. Your teams and processes can be at different levels at any given time. Some processes might reach level four automation while others remain at level two. The real challenge isn't getting every process to the same level - it's ensuring everything converges toward a common goal over time.