TM Forum Report: Autonomous Networks – Exploring the Evolution from Level 0 to 5

The progressive evolution of Communications Service Providers (CSPs) from traditional 20th century telcos to the digital operators of the future, is the story of automation. From initially automating single, repetitive manual tasks to developing a self-aware, self-governing operational model, the journey between these two points is fraught with challenges. To address those challenges, TM Forum’s member group the Autonomous Networks Project (ANP) came together in 2019 to define and standardize the industry’s approach to autonomous networks (AN) and to form a standards developing working group to align and coordinate work in this area. A key piece of this process was to develop a six-step maturity model for AN, against which a CSP’s progress can be measured. In this report we look at some real-world evolutional projects and follow the progress of a hypothetical CSP, AN Telecom, as we detail each step of this maturity model and map some examples of AN evolution against the theory