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REGULATORY NEWS

ITU Launches Open Research Group on Autonomous Networks

The International Telecommunication new service expectations across industry responsive experimentation'. It will
Union (ITU) – the United Nations sectors, network operators must find new study the meaning and characteristics
specialized agency for information and ways to address these pressures while of autonomous networks, providing
communication technologies (ICTs) – has at the same time controlling operational definitions and terminology to build
launched a new Focus Group to support cost," said the Chair of the Focus Group, clarity around the concepts underpinning
the emergence of ICT networks able to Leon Wong, Research Engineer at new ITU creativity in autonomous networks. It will
control their behavior autonomously in the member Rakuten Mobile. The complexity propose technical enablers for evolution
interests of efficiency. Participation is open of the latest network architectures has in autonomous networks to support
to all interested parties. The ITU Focus created the motivations for autonomous networks' dynamic adaptation to future
Group on 'autonomous networks' will networks, but these architectures also ICT environments and use cases. And it
lead an exploratory 'pre-standardization' create the conditions necessary to will demonstrate architecture concepts
study to determine how ITU standards integrate 'creative intelligence' techniques and develop associated guidelines to
will support the realization of autonomous into 5G and future networks. “Creative enable higher levels of autonomy through
networks and their evolution in years to intelligence techniques can provide a real-time responsive experimentation.
come. “ITU standards incorporate the new layer of abstraction, introducing The group is expected to make a key
latest advances in technology whilst taking an evolution mechanism as a catalyst contribution to the coherence of innovation
account of the associated implications for autonomy," said Wong. Autonomous towards autonomous networks by offering
for business dynamics to allow industry networks would display the 'self' an open platform for the collaboration
players to advance together,” said properties: the ability to monitor, operate, of standardization and open-source
ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. recover, heal, protect, optimize and communities and all industry players and
“Innovation towards autonomous reconfigure themselves. These networks academia active in the field. ITU Focus
networks calls for an evolution that is could autonomously adapt and improve Groups accelerate ITU studies in fields
viable both technically and economically management and control, but also self- of growing strategic relevance to ITU
and ITU standards have a long history of evolve through online experimentation to membership. They establish a basis for
enabling such an evolution.” Networks enable better compositions of controllers related international standardization work
are growing in sophistication to enable and controller hierarchies. The Focus in ITU Study Groups. The ITU Focus Group
highly interactive new communication Group will study the creative intelligence on 'autonomous networks' will report to
experiences and innovations in fields techniques that leverage this online ITU-T Study Group 13 (Future networks
such as digital health and intelligent experimentation, elaborating foundational and cloud) , maintaining the momentum
transport systems. IMT-2020/5G and concepts such as 'exploratory evolution', built by the ITU Focus Group on 'machine
future networks will be versatile all-round 'emergent behavior', and 'real-time learning for future networks including 5G’.
players able to meet the requirements
of a very diverse set of ICT applications.
This versatility is made possible by major
advances in cloud computing and network
virtualization – the software revolution
reshaping the networking business – but
this versatility also introduces significant
network complexity. Artificial intelligence
(AI) and machine learning are expected to
play a key part in managing this complexity,
especially in meeting new demands on
network management and control as
these demands exceed the capabilities
of humans as well as pre-defined
automated processes. “As the demands
on communication networks have grown
through increased user subscription and

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