• Telefónica names Andrea Folgueiras as new global CTIO
• Sprinklr adds AI to BT’s CX mix 
• Elisa goes live with Nokia’s cloud RAN

In today’s industry news roundup: Andrea Folgueiras is to become the next global CTIO at Telefónica in April 2025 when Enrique Blanco retires; BT adds multiple flavours of AI to its customer experience management processes using Sprinklr’s platform; Finland’s Elisa leans on Nokia, Red Hat and Dell for its initial cloud RAN deployment; and much more!

Andrea Folgueiras has been appointed as the next CTIO at Telefónica following the announcement that Enrique Blanco will retire on 31 March 2025, after 40 years at the giant Spanish telco. Folgueiras has more than 30 years of telecom sector experience: In 1991, she joined Telefónica in Argentina, where in 1997 she became CTO. In 2007, she took over as CTO of Telefónica Deutschland; in 2013 she was appointed CTO of Telefónica Brazil; and since 2016 she has been CTIO for Telefónica Hispanoamérica (Hispam), the unit that brings together the telco’s assets and operations in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela. The telco thanked “Blanco for his technological leadership in operations and systems during all these years, in which he has set a roadmap in the telco industry that has enabled the group to be a technological benchmark, offering the company’s customers new-generation networks in the main markets.” Blanco, a generous and gregarious man, will be missed in the telecom world – you can see what he had to say about developments at Telefónica in this TelecomTV interview conducted at MWC24.   

BT Group has turned to software-as-a-service (SaaS) customer experience management system vendor Sprinklr to add a touch of AI magic to its virtual assistant, Aimee. The UK national operator says the use of Sprinklr’s unified customer experience management platform will result in “the integration of advanced AI and generative AI technologies” into its back-office processes and enable the use of conversational AI for external customer care and internal communications via Aimee. That integration means the resulting interactions can be relevant to the customers’ needs. “When a customer is seeking support, the platform can draw on BT Group’s data to provide a personalised, accurate response,” noted the telco. BT said Aimee is handling an increasing number of interactions – 60,000 conversations per week, double the volume of two years ago. “The collaboration with Sprinklr marks a significant step forward in BT Group's commitment to using cutting-edge technology to deliver exceptional customer experiences,” noted Harry Singh, MD of consumer digital at BT Group. “With our customer contact platform, we have unlocked powerful AI-enhanced capabilities for our customer service, boosting satisfaction and creating exciting new opportunities for customer experience,” he added. Sprinklr president and CEO Rory Read added: “We’re delighted to be working alongside the iconic brands within BT Group, at the forefront of innovative customer engagement through effective AI. AI has huge potential to enhance and elevate customer experiences, and it’s been fantastic to help BT Group achieve such brilliant results, so quickly.” If that name rings a bell (as we like to say in telecom), then it’s because Read was formerly the CEO at Vonage, where he successfully helped to sell the company to Ericsson for $6.2bn in a deal that closed in July 2022. Ericsson has since revised the value of Vonage to about $2.2bn. Caveat emptor, as the Romans used to say…  

Finland’s Elisa, which is known for its deployment of cutting-edge technology, has deployed Nokia’s cloud RAN systems, including its AirScale massive MIMO radios, baseband software and MantaRay network management solution, along with Red Hat’s OpenShift cloud platform and Dell XR8620 servers, in its commercial network in Espoo. The partners claim this is the first 5G cloud RAN deployment in Europe. According to Nokia, its cloud RAN technology can “co-exist with purpose-built networks in hybrid environments and evolve into full cloud-native networks, supporting the rising demand for RAN cloudification.” Elisa’s CTO, Kalle Lehtinen, noted: “This successful cloud RAN deployment with Nokia is another important step on our cloudification, which started with cloudifying the network core and edge, and now includes the radio access network. We continue to pioneer new technologies in our journey towards autonomous operations helping us to continue innovating and delivering best customer experience,” added Lehtinen. Aji Ed, head of cloud RAN at Nokia, stated: “This successful collaboration with Elisa confirms that our cloud RAN solution is ready for commercial deployment. Under our anyRAN approach, we work very closely with strategic partners like Red Hat and bring together best-in-class partner solutions to offer true flexibility and scalability to operators and enterprises. For our customers, cloudification will enable new revenue models and monetisation options.” And Honoré LaBourdette, VP for telco, media, entertainment and edge ecosystem at Red Hat, commented: “Cloud RAN’s significance lies not only in providing an efficient and flexible way to deploy applications and derive value at the edge but also in boosting collaboration and innovation across the ecosystem. With Red Hat OpenShift, we’re making this vision a reality by offering a consistent hybrid-cloud foundation that empowers businesses to build and scale the applications of the future.” Read more.

TelecomTV has received further details about Alianza’s acquisition of Metaswitch from Microsoft, about which we reported earlier in the week. Alianza is acquiring all of Metaswitch’s intellectual property (IP) and will be taking 270 staff on board as part of the deal (but it isn’t disclosing financial details related to the deal). Alianza stresses that it isn’t acquiring any Affirmed Networks assets as part of the deal: Affirmed was the other telecom tech company Microsoft acquired in 2020 when it had greater aspirations in the cloud network functions sector. 

Anyone expecting investment news from Mavenir’s global analyst event in Dallas will have been disappointed, as the only press release updates from the gathering involved an narrowband internet of things  (NB-IoT) test with Canadian satellite operator Terrestar Solutions and an Open RAN multivendor interoperability milestone with Boost Mobile (the new name for US 5G greenfield operator Dish Wireless): Those announcements followed the news that AT&T has added Mavenir to its list of Open RAN equipment suppliers. Industry speculation circulating in November suggested that Saudi Arabia’s Aramco Digital might take a $1bn stake in Mavenir, which appears to be having a challenging time with its balance sheet, but, so far at least, there are no signs of any major financial transactions.  

Vodafone Business IoT has developed a machine learning (ML)-enabled anomaly detection tool in partnership with Celfocus that can “proactively detect service anomalies in near real time, meaning that customer support teams have instant access to advanced data insights and, as a result, can react faster to any issues,” the operator announced in this press release.

Mumbai, India-based Tata Communications has unveiled an AI-enabled customer experience solution called Kaleyra that it believes will “redefine customer interactions”. The system initially offers three capabilities – GenAI Template Generator for WhatsApp, Conversational AI Data Reporting and Conversational AI No-Code Builder – that are designed to integrate with communication channels and live agent interfaces and leverage generative AI (GenAI) to “provide a competitive edge through streamlined, personalised and highly engaging customer interactions,” the company announced in this press release. A beta release of Kaleyra will be offered to customers in early 2025 while a full commercial release will be made available on the Tata Communications AI Cloud during the first half of next year.

– The staff, TelecomTV