Event Recap: AWS news from Mobile World Congress 2024

Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 welcomed over 100,000 attendees, 2,700+ exhibitors, sponsors and partners, and 1,100 speakers and thought leaders, to explore industry topics including AI, monetization opportunities, and the transformative power of the cloud for telcos.

“This event is about providing a glimpse into the future and demonstrating how AI, 5G and APIs are unlocking new possibilities, thanks to collaborative initiatives like GSMA Open Gateway,” said Mats Granryd, director general at GSMA.

AWS shared a number of customer and partner announcements across generative AI, network APIs, 5G, and network transformation. Attendees also saw firsthand how AWS innovations can transform telcos, digitize industries, and reimagine consumer experiences through the 20+ demos at the AWS next level. Watch the AWS next level recap video.

Here are a few highlights from AWS at MWC 2024.

Generative AI was everywhere

Telcos are looking to artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and generative AI to streamline costs and efficiencies, enable better customer engagement, and drive innovative new offerings. With enterprise-grade security and privacy, a choice of leading foundation models, a data-first approach, and the most performant, low-cost infrastructure, telcos trust AWS to deliver everything they need to accelerate generative AI powered innovation.

At MWC 2024, there were more 40 sessions that focused on AI, with many noting that generative AI is on the verge of transforming the way we live, work, and interact. BT Group announced that it deployed Amazon Q’s coding companion (Amazon CodeWhisperer) to provide generative AI coding assistance to its software engineers. The solution is already providing 15-20 suggestions of code per active user per day for BT Group, with an acceptance rate of 37% by its software engineers who are using the platform. This is a great example of the value, efficiency, and support generative AI can offer.

Tele2 announced it is using AWS to launch an Internet of Things (IoT) customer support solution, powered by Amazon Bedrock. The solution is designed using AWS services and will help Tele2 IoT customer support agents to provide faster and more detailed conversational responses to IoT customer inquiries across multiple channels.

Interest in Network APIs was at an all-time high

Central to the shift of telecom operators into future-ready organizations is the embrace of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). McKinsey estimated the network API market could unlock around $100-300 billion in revenue for operators over the next 5-7 years, stemming from connectivity and edge computing, while generating an additional $10-30 billion from APIs themselves. The GSMA Open Gateway initiative was announced at MWC 2023 with the support of 21 mobile network operators and cloud providers, including AWS. Since then, Open Gateway has expanded to 47 operators, attracting developers to build innovative use cases and applications, using APIs that expose unique characteristics of the networks.

In the run up to MWC 2024, AWS announced it is working alongside global telcos including Verizon, Telefónica, T-Mobile, Orange, and Liberty Global, to offer telco network APIs to AWS developers. These developers already use thousands of AWS APIs from over 240 AWS services, and they can access telco network APIs to reach more developers and customers through AWS Marketplace. We have AWS applications in financial services, gaming, and immersive experiences being built using telco APIs, and will be adding more operators globally, as we get adoption.

5G Future Forum (5GFF) members, including Telstra, Verizon, Vodafone, Rogers, America Movil, KT, and Bell Canada, in collaboration with AWS, released a whitepaper defining the role of bi-directional APIs between telco and cloud providers in advancing multi-edge computing (MEC) infrastructure integration and applications.

Vonage announced a collaboration with AWS to accelerate the availability of new solutions, with an anti-fraud solution as the first one. AWS generative AI services will enhance the solution’s fraud detection capabilities, enabling businesses to better protect themselves from mobile fraud while improving the customer experience.

Network Transformation in the Telco Industry

Telcos across the world are leveraging cloud to transform their networks so they can take advantage of the cloud’s economics, scale, and agility. This allows them to focus on what’s most important — transforming telcos core networks, monetizing their investments, digitizing industries, reimagining the consumer experience, and increasing resilience and security.

NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s leading mobile operator with more than 89 million subscribers, selected AWS to commercially deploy its nationwide 5G Open Radio Access Network (RAN) in Japan. DOCOMO will use AWS to deploy Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service Anywhere, a container management software, at its 5G Open RAN to simplify network operations with automated cluster management tools. AWS is supporting NTT DOCOMO in developing its 5G Core on AWS that is running in a hybrid cloud environment.

TELUS announced a new collaboration with Samsung Electronics and AWS that will see Telus become the first telecommunications provider in North America to evolve the architecture of roaming, enabling greater reliability and faster speeds for customers traveling abroad. Meanwhile, in Europe, Swiss telecom operator Sunrise Business announced it is working with AWS to accelerate the cloudification of Swiss small to medium-sized enterprises.

In Latin America, Beyond ONE/Virgin Mobile announced it is working with AWS to drive growth and innovation in the region’s telecommunications sector. Virgin Mobile will use a combination of AWS Regions and AWS hybrid cloud offerings—including AWS Outposts and AWS Local Zones—to modernize the Beyond One stack and mark a significant step forward in cloud adoption and digital transformation in the region.

Read more about our other announcements below.

Women in Tech

AWS promotes diversity in technology and supports organizations empowering women to pursue tech careers. According to GSMA, MWC 2024 attracted 26% of female attendees, and of the 1,100 speakers, 40% of them were female. This year, AWS hosted a panel discussion on opportunities and challenges women in the telecom industry face and reinforced our commitment to diversity across the telecom ecosystem during our AWS executive reception.

Demos

At MWC 2024, AWS showcased 20+ demos across three main themes:

1/ Transforming Telcos
These demos focused on the network cloudification journey of CSPs (across RAN, Core, IMS and OSS/BSS) through unified automation, orchestration and generative AI toolchain, resulting in new growth opportunities, reduced OPEX, increased sustainability, and enhanced resiliency. Watch the recap:

• For example, Samsung Cloud RAN is using Amazon Bedrock and Anthropic Claude v2 along with Amazon Bedrock Agents to improve performance up to 25% by using AI to automatically tune the RAN configuration.

2/ Digitizing industries
Innovative industry use cases in this demo area showcased how AWS is supporting leading telcos to help digitize industries like healthcare, manufacturing, travel and hospitality, and financial services. This is done through reinventing connectivity and introducing new business models (via private network solutions, network APIs, public MEC, etc.). Watch the recap:

• AWS, Accenture and Verizon worked together to deploy on-premises 5G and private mobile-edge computing (MEC) to unlock the value 5G provides in manufacturing. AWS deployed a new solution at Jabil’s manufacturing facility that feeds a live stream camera at different stations on the assembly lines, to computer vision-based models on AWS Snowball Edge. The solution reduced test failures due to defective units built through assembly by 95%.

3/ Reimagining consumer experience
The demos in this area showcased some of the innovative solutions AWS is developing with telcos and leading ISVs to engage consumers in a more exciting, personalized, and smart way.

• Our SmartHome+ demo with TELUS integrates AWS generative AI, AWS IoT Core, and Alexa Voice Services to enable a smarter living solution. The demo encapsulates how TELUS is pioneering in transforming consumer interactions and scaling up smart solutions in the era of advanced connectivity and AI.

Did you attend MWC 2024? Leave your top telco takeaways and predictions for 2024 in the comments section of this post. Follow AWS for Telecom to see highlights from the event this year and to stay up to date with our latest news.

See you at Mobile World Congress 2025!

AWS Announcements at MWC 2024

General

• AWS announced it is joining the AI-RAN Alliance, a new collaborative initiative aimed at integrating AI into cellular technology to advance radio access network (RAN) technology and mobile networks.
• Canonical announced an expansion of its relationship with AWS to make Real-time Ubuntu available to Amazon EKS Anywhere customers for use in Open RAN commercial deployments.
• Unmanned Life was awarded the prestigious GSMA Foundry Excellence Award for Digital Transformation with Liberty Global and AWS. The award-winning use-case was a deployment of U-Security in the Port of Antwerp, leveraging a sliced 5G network for drone connectivity through Liberty Global’s Telenet, as well as AI computer vision analytics at the edge through the AWS Snowball Edge device.

Generative AI

• Amdocs and AWS developed a solution that combines the power of AWS with Amdocs. Anthropic’s Claude Model hosted in Amazon Bedrock will access the network data and the insights generated by Amdocs’ algorithms to performs tasks like: information extraction, summarization, aggregation of data on the fly.
• BT Group announced it deployed Amazon Q’s coding companion (CodeWhisperer) to provide generative AI coding assistance to its software engineers. The solution is already providing 15-20 suggestions of code per active user per day for BT Group, with an acceptance rate of 37% by its software engineers who are using the platform. Over 100,000 lines of code have been generated by Amazon Q in its first four months at BT Group—automating around 12% of the tedious, repetitive, and time-consuming work done by an initial group of volunteers. BT Group has now made the solution more widely available to 1,200 of its engineers across the business.
• CelcomDigi announced a collaboration with AWS to co-create generative AI solutions using Amazon Bedrock to establish an AI Sandbox for its employees to experiment, innovate, and implement generative AI solutions. This includes potential use cases that will be integrated into CelcomDigi’s operational platforms for human resources, customer service, legal, finance, and more.
• Maxis announced a new collaboration with AWS to accelerate innovation in the dynamic fields of generative AI and 5G use cases for Malaysian enterprise customers. Maxis will now be able to leverage AWS advanced machine learning capabilities to build, train, and deploy AI models at scale, to harness the full potential of artificial intelligence.
• MYCOM OSI announced a new generative AI-based expert application concept, Experience Assurance and Analytics (EAA) GenAie, which is built using Amazon Bedrock to empower CSP frontline operations and business teams to handle complex network and service issues, democratizing data, reducing cost of operations, and improving customer experience.
• Snowflake shared that they have been working with AWS to transform the telecom sector, helping to resolve technical work queries from days to just minutes. AWS worked with Snowflake to build GenTwin, an innovative Network Operations solution blending private 5G, #generativeAI using Amazon Bedrock, and digital twins using AWS IoT TwinMaker to empower industries with unparalleled efficiency, automation, and adaptability, heralding a transformative era for network management.
• Tele2 announced that is leveraging AWS to launch an Internet of Things (IoT) customer support solution, powered by Amazon Bedrock. The solution was designed using AWS services and showcased to customers at Tele2 IoT Talks at the end of 2023. It will help Tele2 IoT customer support agents to provide faster and more detailed conversational responses to IoT customer inquiries across multiple channels.

Network Transformation

• AWS announced it is working alongside global telcos including Verizon, Telefónica, T-Mobile, Orange, and Liberty Global, to offer telco network APIs to AWS developers. These developers already use thousands of AWS APIs from over 240 AWS services, and now they can access telco APIs to reach more developers and customers through AWS Marketplace.
• Beyond ONE/Virgin Mobile announced it is working with AWS to drive growth and innovation in the region’s telecommunications sector. Virgin Mobile will use a combination of AWS Regions and AWS hybrid cloud offerings—including AWS Outposts and AWS Local Zones—to modernize the Beyond One stack and mark a significant step forward in cloud adoption and digital transformation in the region.
• BICS is working with AWS to launch a new cloud-based roaming service which will enhance the mobile roaming experience by providing faster, more reliable internet access, whether at home, or while traveling abroad. By migrating its roaming connectivity platform to AWS’s global infrastructure, BICS can deliver roaming internet up to five times faster than traditional international mobile roaming services.
• Casa Systems announced a breakthrough in wireless wireline convergence (WWC): a successful deployment of Casa’s virtualized 5G Core control plane function using AWS Region, with Casa’s virtualized access gateway function (AGF) and 5G Core user plane function in private cloud. The work between Casa and AWS highlights the growing role of cloud-native network solutions in telecommunications.
• Clear Mobitel and NEC Corporation announced the successful deployment of NEC’s state-of-the-art 5G Standalone (SA) Cloud Native Core Network solution, built on AWS, in the UK to accelerate the delivery and adoption of advanced 5G services.
• Finetwork selected Amdocs to transform its core business systems, enabling it to offer triple-play options for end-users encompassing fiber, TV, and mobile services in a more flexible, cost-effective way. The Amdocs AI-based Digital Brands Suite as a Service, powered by AWS, will empower Finetwork to enhance its offerings and provide end users with a simpler, digital customer experience.
• NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s leading mobile operator with more than 89 million subscribers, shared the news that it has selected AWS to commercially deploy its nationwide 5G Open Radio Access Network (RAN) in Japan. DOCOMO will use AWS to deploy Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service Anywhere, a container management software, at its 5G Open RAN to simplify network operation with automated cluster management tools. AWS is supporting DOCOMO in developing its 5G Core on AWS that is running in a hybrid cloud environment.
• NTT DOCOMO announced it has added further options with a combination of NEC, AWS and Red Hat, Qualcomm, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Dell Technologies.
• NTT DOCOMO & OREX announced that AWS has joined this group of OREX Partners to provide end-to-end Open RAN Cloud platform solutions including container management software, automation framework, and Open RAN lifecycle management.
• Omantel announced it is working with AWS to create sovereign cloud capabilities for Oman. The goal of the strategic relationship is to address data residency and security requirements, especially for government entities and regulated industries in Oman. Omantel will collaborate with AWS to build a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) to provide training, enablement, and support to help Omani organizations successfully migrate to the cloud. Additionally, AWS will be a preferred cloud provider for Omantel as it pursues its digital transformation ambitions.
• Qvantel has signed an agreement with Etisalat Misr by e& to implement their Qvantel Flex BSS solution, running on AWS Outposts, to help in the digital transformation of Etisalat BSS.
• Red Hat announced a collaboration to make it easier for telecommunications service providers to accelerate and manage 5G adoption and deployments across the hybrid cloud. Tech Mahindra’s Multi-mode Companion Cloud with Red Hat OpenShift, running on AWS, can support multiple network use cases, spanning RAN, edge computing, transport and 5G core, to extend capabilities across hybrid cloud environments.
• Samsung is spearheading 5G innovation through a trailblazing collaboration with AWS, providing a glimpse into the future of end-to-end virtualized networks and offering creative paths and improved capabilities to satisfy various demands for next-generation services and features.
• Sateliot announced that it has achieved 5G service messaging connection via the Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) commercial network, KSATlite. Using AWS, Sateliot has built a fully virtualized cloud-native 5G core for Narrowband (NB)-IoT Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), providing flexible, low-cost, and hyper-scalable narrowband solutions supporting Sateliot’s end-to-end service.
• Sunrise Business, Swiss telecom operator, announced it is working with AWS to accelerate the cloudification of Swiss small to medium-sized enterprises. Customers of Sunrise Business will profit from pre-defined modularized product packages covering cloud and connectivity, tailored to the requirements of SMEs. The new proposition builds on AWS services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and AWS Storage Gateway.
• Telstra announced a hybrid network architecture resiliency trial of Nokia’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) software in a world first collaboration with AWS and Nokia. The IMS trial stems from a long-standing strategic relationship with AWS to drive Telstra’s network leadership, particularly through activities aimed at increasing network reliability, resiliency, and customer experience.
• TELUS announced a new collaboration with Samsung Electronics and AWS that will see TELUS become the first telecommunications provider in North America to evolve the architecture of roaming, enabling greater reliability and faster speeds for customers traveling abroad. TELUS is able to house their network within AWS Regions worldwide, using virtualized roaming gateways. This means that traffic no longer needs to go through Canada, but will be routed directly to the closest AWS Region that houses TELUS’ network, significantly enhancing speed and responsiveness of mobile services.
• Verizon Business and Audi AG announced a partnership to build a state-of-the-art private wireless network and tech-testing environment at Audi’s automotive test track in Neustadt, Germany. The Audi test track will be equipped with a dual 5G and LTE Modular Private Wireless platform (Nokia), private multi-access edge-compute (MEC) capability (AWS), real-time video and data transmission technology (Smart Mobile Labs), C-V2X communication, and mobile/automotive applications spanning voice, data, autonomous mobility, safety and more.
• Vodafone Ireland announced a successful deployment of the Celfocus BSP on AWS. The project’s main drivers were a migration to cloud, with AWS as the selected cloud provider, leveraging the cloud-native services to ensure availability, resilience, scalability requirements and gaining access to future BSP roadmap updates.
• Vonage announced a collaboration with AWS to accelerate the availability of new solutions, with an anti-fraud solution as the first one. The solution’s fraud detection capabilities will be enhanced by supporting AWS generative AI services, which will enable businesses to better protect themselves from mobile fraud while simultaneously improving the customer experience

Network Monetization

• 2degrees has chosen Totogi to modernize its wholesale offering to the MVNO and digital brand market. This selection is part of 2degree’s ongoing commitment to its customers, community, and the environment, designed to foster a thriving software-defined offering for MVNO brands. Totogi’s Charging-as-a-Service (CaaS), built using AWS AI and machine learning (ML) services, including Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker, was selected for its quick onboarding and efficient service for MVNO customers.
• 5G Future Forum (5GFF) members, including Telstra, Verizon, Vodafone, Rogers, America Movil, KT, and Bell Canada, in collaboration with AWS, released a whitepaper defining the role of bi-directional APIs between telco and cloud providers in advancing multi-edge computing (MEC) infrastructure integration and applications.
• DigitalRoute, Intraway Symphonica, and Totogi, led by Trektel, are working with AWS to introduce a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in-a-box solution to radically simplify, expedite, and improve the industry’s go-to-market and capabilities.
• Ericsson announced a collaboration with Wipro to modernize billing infrastructure for ODIDO on AWS. All subscribers from ODIDO’s mobile virtual network offering (MVNO), Ben, have been successfully migrated to Ericsson Billing, which is seamlessly hosted on AWS.
• Intel announced its continued collaboration with AWS to help customers accelerate private network deployments across vertical markets. The latest example includes the addition of Amdocs as a system integrator for the Integrated Private Wireless (IPW) on AWS program. Through the program, AWS customers can access end-to-end Amdocs Mobile Private Network (MPN) services, and the infrastructure, built on AWS Outposts servers, is powered by Intel® Xeon® processors.
• Liberty Global announced a collaboration with AWS to create a Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) framework that enables developers to use and access Liberty Global’s fixed and mobile networks as a platform for innovation. The collaboration seeks to leverage the combination of Liberty Global’s extensive telecoms networks and AWS’s global cloud infrastructure and existing developer ecosystem to develop compelling use cases for NaaS.