As we step into 2025, the telecom landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa presents both significant opportunities and challenges. In an exclusive interview with Telecom Review, Rajiv Aggarwal, Head of Sales, Sub-Saharan Africa, Cloud & Network Services at Nokia, reflects on key takeaways from 2024, the growing role of automation and AI, the escalating importance of security, and the trends set to shape the telecom industry in 2025. His insights offer a roadmap for navigating this rapidly evolving market.
We’re at the start of 2025. What are some of your key observations from 2024?
It is indeed amazing how quickly time flies by! 2024—in all manners—was a remarkable year for our Cloud & Network Services team in Sub-Saharan Africa. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) in this part of the continent were primarily focused on expanding their networks, growing their capacity and creating value-added services for their subscribers.
One of my main observations was the enhanced focus among our customers on sustainability measures to reduce their carbon footprint and improve their handprint. This has led to engaging discussions on moving the needle towards a carbon-neutral business environment.
Another interesting conversation has been on security, notably cybersecurity, as the increasing number of cybercrimes across the world has heightened concerns about maintaining operational continuity of voice and data networks, protecting sensitive customer data, and defending against large-scale DDoS attacks.
Lastly, the growing influence of automation, particularly Generative AI (or GenAI), is becoming more apparent. CSPs are getting quite inquisitive about its applications in the Telco World and the impact it could have on getting new services to the market more quickly and efficiently.
What are the three biggest challenges that you face in your region?
There are plenty of challenges in the Sub-Saharan region. The biggest one is probably currency devaluation, which is leading to extreme inflation.This, in turn, has impacted the ability of our customers to suitably modernize their networks, keep pace with the growth in network traffic, and invest in new solutions to help them meet their business needs.
The second one is the need for CSPs to manage their operational costs and while simultaneously improving overall efficiency to give their customers the best possible services at the best prices. This sometimes leads to prioritization of expanding capacity and coverage over incorporating automation into their operations.
The third big challenge is managing subscriber churn while finding new avenues for revenue growth. In a price-sensitive market where services offered are roughly standardized, subscribers tend to get drawn to price plans that are more budget-friendly. So CSPs need to ensure that they can deliver new services to their customers as well as better network quality to retain customers and maintain loyalty.
Have you seen an increase in the role of automation with your key customers in Sub-Saharan Africa, and do you see a role for AI in the future?
There is definately a growing interest in automation within our Sub-Saharan Africa customer base, and many are keen to understand how they can use automation to influence their primary business drivers. They have pointed out that improving customer experience and enabling new business models are the main incentives for introducing network automation. They recognize the need to differentiate their services and reduce costs, and automation will enable them to be more competitive. Overall, the level of automation in end-to-end services is still relatively low.
Having said that, CSPs are still in the early stages of network automation and the overall transformation that it brings. Network optimization and equipment configuration are partially automated through predefined rules, while service fulfilment and fault/performance management are the first to reach higher levels of autonomy.
There are challenges too; interoperability with current networks and integration with existing systems are telcos’ most significant concerns when trying to automate. Additionally, there is a skills gap in the CSP workforce for implementing and managing automated systems. Our view is that CSPs should define a clear strategy for autonomous networks and create roadmaps covering the whole journey. Experimenting with different solutions and methods can help to find the right approach for each organization.
Security is a hot topic among many governments in Africa, and the number of security threats are growing by the day. How can Nokia help in this situation?
Security has indeed become a major concern in every single industry, not just the telco industry. Every company has a brand equity to maintain and security breaches, especially highly public ones, which tend to deteriorate brand loyalty and trust. This is compounded by the rapid expansion of cloud, webscale, and distributed application architectures, creating a larger surface for potential security breaches. As complexity grows, traditional security approaches struggle to keep pace with modern threats.
For CSPs, traditional IT security is not enough. They need telco security because the scope, focus, features, and challenges are very different. Telco cybersecurity is dedicated to protecting the entire telecommunications infrastructure and prioritizing uninterrupted service availability. Its top priorities are maintaining operational continuity of voice and data networks, protecting sensitive customer data, and defending against large-scale DDoS attacks.
In addition to having distinct security priorities, telco network security demands a specialized skill set and compliance with specific regulatory requirements. Professionals in this field need expertise in telco network topology and communication protocols. They should also adhere to 3GPP standards, GSMA guidelines, and various country-specific regulations.
Additionally, the emergence of quantum security, particularly post-quantum cryptography (PQC), marks a critical milestone in preparing our digital infrastructures for the quantum computing era. As quantum computers have the potential to break current encryption methods, PQC algorithms are being developed to ensure that our encryption standards remain secure against these future threats.
Nokia has been helping its customers by bringing deep telco security expertise in measuring CSPs’ security preparedness and designing a plan to keep their network secure. Our end-to-end security products portfolio, enhanced with GenAI, includes use-case driven technologies and is designed with real-world applications in mind. Our Managed Security Services not only offer Managed Detection and Response (MDR), but also provide a customized suite of value-added telco security services tailored to protect both operational technology (telco security) and the IT environment of CSPs and verticals.
Looking at 2025, what are the top three trends that you expect to see in your market?
In 2025, I expect AI-based automation to take center stage. CSPs will look to introduce GenAI into their Telco AI strategy, which will be a game-changer. CSPs are actively engaging in internal discussions at an executive level to define an AI-centric vision that aligns with business cases related to cost savings and performance efficiency. This will not only enable them to speed up knowledge discovery and content generation, but will also allow them to apply it to a wide range of tasks like alarm intelligence, ticket resolution, network security, network planning, and service management automation.
The other trend is related to monetization of CSPs’ investments, and the API economy is becoming a reality. Operators can create new business models by exposing advanced 5G capabilities through standardized APIs, thereby offering different services based on factors like quality of service or network resources consumed, leading to performance-based monetization. Our innovative Network as Code platform makes network complexities simple by abstracting them and exposing developer-friendly interfaces. These interfaces allow developers touse applications seamlessly across multiple public and private networks.
Lastly, cybersecurity will undergo a revolutionary transformation, driven by new technologies and regulatory advancements that are reshaping the way critical infrastructure providers need to protect digital assets. One of the most significant developments is the integration of generative AI (GenAI) into security frameworks. GenAI is transforming threat detection and response by enabling systems to identify complex patterns and anomalies in real-time, enhancing our ability to predict and mitigate cyber threats with accuracy. This advancement in AI-driven cybersecurity is complemented by a global tightening of government regulations, which are setting high benchmarks for data protection and network security.
