SMO approaches will shape the vendor ecosystem and push operators to review partner strategies

Analysys Mason’s recent report Operator strategies for Level 4 autonomous networking at the RAN management layer discussed how service management and orchestration (SMO) is quickly gaining traction among operators as a way to support their L4 automation goals. However, operators could achieve substantially different results from SMO depending on their deployment approach. 

The approach that operators choose to follow should match their capabilities, along with their objectives relating to time to market (TTM), flexibility and platform commercialisation. In addition, their choice should be supported by a robust partner strategy that demands flexibility from incumbent suppliers or limits the challenges associated with challenger vendors, highly multi-vendor approaches or DIY approaches.