The role of digital twins in autonomous networks

Digital twins – virtual simulations of real-world scenarios – have become critical tools to test the next generation of telecoms and enterprise technologies, including autonomous network (AN) architectures. A digital twin can provide a replica of the physical telecoms network and, crucially, throughout the network lifecycle.

By giving communications service providers (CSPs) a powerful tool to visualize their network assets, planning for change and experimenting with new service propositions before they go live, digital twins can reduce risk (and cost) of service disruption and also have a positive impact on customer experience. In particular, network-focused digital twins are becoming essential to helping CSPs move to higher levels of network autonomy which rely on closed-loop and intent-driven automation, where accurate and reliable decision-making is critical.

This report explores the role digital twins can play in supporting CSPs’ ambitions to make their networks more autonomous. Read it to understand:

• How network digital twins can help CSPs with resource, process and workflow visualization
• How CSPs can use digital twins to monitor network operations in real time to enhance operational efficiency, reduce downtime and maintenance costs, and deliver cost/energy reductions
• The advantages of digital twins for planning technology change and upgrades in the network, such as reducing the risk of adverse customer impact
• The relationship between digital twins and AI / generative AI and the importance of data in building accurate digital twin models
• How digital twin networks can help drive autonomous network implementation.