In the latest episode of the Dinis Guarda Podcast, Peter Jarich, Head of GSMA Intelligence, a division of the GSMA, discusses the transformative role of 5G and AI in telecoms, the evolution of mobile generations, and the future of digital connectivity. The podcast is powered by Businessabc.net, Citiesabc.com, Wisdomia.ai, and Sportsabc.org.
Peter Jarich serves as the Head of GSMA Intelligence, a division of the GSMA, where he leads a team of more than 40 analysts. He manages the development of insights and research on critical topics such as 5G, IoT, telecom network transformation, spectrum dynamics, and digital consumer behaviour. His areas of focus include Open RAN, private wireless networks, edge networking, and public-cloud applications, ensuring that GSMA Intelligence remains a top global provider of mobile industry data.
During the interview with Dinis Guarda, Peter Jarich explains the evolution of AI in telecom:
“The idea of AI being new for Telco isn’t really true. Mobile operators around the world have been using AI for years, particularly as they look to optimise and automate their networks.
What’s changed over the last few years is an acceleration… Generative AI really helped people understand some of the new opportunities.
What you had there was the sort of democratisation where AI became more accessible, more people were using it. You have network effects, new application development, and it really drove this flywheel to get so much more activity around AI.
What they all want to do is understand how you can leverage this to make money… You can’t save your way to growth. Growth is the imperative.
We’re seeing some of those opportunities… operators are doing things as simple as sell-through, working with AI innovators to sell some of those services.
Some people are serving as AI factories… developing AI factories, sandboxes, and platforms where they can help enterprises develop new applications.
You’ve got operators developing banks of GPUs and selling access to them on a service basis. Some of this is driven by geopolitics, making sure that your AI applications live within a country.
I think we’re at a really good place to see what that monetisation might look like for operators. We’ll see more and more examples across the year.”
AI revolutionising Telecom: Opportunities and monetisation
Peter discusses the evolution of AI in telecom, emphasising how telecom operators have been leveraging AI for years to optimise their networks:
“The idea of AI being new for Telco isn’t really true. Mobile operators around the world have been using AI for years, particularly as they look to optimise and automate their networks.
What’s changed over the last few years is an acceleration… Generative AI really helped people understand some of the new opportunities.
What you had there was the sort of democratisation where AI became more accessible, more people were using it. You have network effects, new application development, and it really drove this flywheel to get so much more activity around AI.
What they all want to do is understand how you can leverage this to make money… You can’t save your way to growth. Growth is the imperative.
We’re seeing some of those opportunities… operators are doing things as simple as sell-through, working with AI innovators to sell some of those services.
Some people are serving as AI factories… developing AI factories, sandboxes, and platforms where they can help enterprises develop new applications.
You’ve got operators developing banks of GPUs and selling access to them on a service basis. Some of this is driven by geopolitics, making sure that your AI applications live within a country.
I think we’re at a really good place to see what that monetisation might look like for operators. We’ll see more and more examples across the year.”
GSMA Intelligence: Driving mobile innovation
Peter explains how GSMA Intelligence operates within the telecommunications and technology space, highlighting their research methods, collaboration with industry players, and how their unique position within the GSMA benefits their ability to produce insights.
“We needed to operate like many other research firms… I have a team of smart analysts distributed around the world, tracking the developments in the industry whether that means through public announcements or industry reports, but also engaging with the industry right, talking to operators, talking to vendors.
We capture those trends and capture that data in a way that’s easily digestible… but by being inside a member organisation that’s working on specifications, policy, and directly with operators, we have the benefit of being able to get those insights much more easily and deeply.”
Every year at MWC, the CTOs of all the major operators meet, and I sit on those meetings… It’s incredible to hear about the challenges in technology, what’s holding it back, and what we need to overcome to drive these technologies into the industry.
We behave like many other research firms, but we have a huge benefit in terms of some of the access that we have to the ecosystem.
Peter also discusses some of the significant projects GSMA Intelligence works on:
“Our Mobile Economy series tries to capture what’s going on in most of the big markets around Mobility… it covers some of the trends.
Our workaround Network transformation is something we do with operators every year… we talk to 100-plus operators to understand how networks are changing, what are they investing in, and what are their priorities. It’s particularly important that when we do work, it’s representative… It’s really important to get views from across a variety of sources.
We’ve been looking at networks… trying to understand what network professionals who are driving networks for operators are doing in terms of 5G, evolving 5G, investing in AI, and how quickly they’re deploying AI.
We maintain a database of Spectrum allocations across the world… being able to call out those details, from this frequency to that frequency, and how allocations were done with these requirements is critical.
It’s not just about low band, midband, or high band Spectrum, but being able to call out those granular details that people can actually use… that helps drive the industry.”
5G: Driving AI’s data revolution
Peter Jarich explains the important role that 5G plays in enabling AI:
“I think probably a lot of people don’t recognize how it’s particularly important, but I’ll give an example… 4G allowed the mass availability of mobile broadband, which in many ways gave birth to or supported the app economy.
In the same way, making this connection to mobile AI is really smart… AI thrives on data, and your AI models are meaningless unless they have a lot of data to work with.
All these apps that we have probably wouldn’t have existed without access to 4G”.
Talkin about the role of data in AI, Peter explains:
“Having access to data, particularly through IoT devices, is important… but a lot of those AI models, that AI processing is taking place in the cloud.
How do you get access to that data, particularly in a mobile aspect, without those high-capacity technologies?
Going forward, we have to think about how we evolve the networks to support the growing use of AI. It’s a really good point, and why I think the space we’re in right now is particularly exciting.”
From 5G to 6G: The future of connectivity and innovation
Peter talks about the evolution of mobile generations from 1G to 5G and the ongoing developments with 5G Advanced, while also touching on the upcoming 6G technologies:
“When we think about mobile technologies, we think about these eras or generations—that’s the ‘G’ in 5G. These generations tend to come around every 10 years… we first had analogue service, we didn’t really call it 1G at the time because it was just what we had.
We went from those analogue services to digital services—that was really the first big jump, and we called that 2G. You might remember those days when we probably had big phones, it was called GSM in much of the world and CDMA in other parts.
Back in the day when we were talking about this new standard for the third generation, 3G… people saying, ‘Hey, the standards will allow for data rates up to three megabits per second.’ I was like, ‘That’s crazy. Who’s going to need that?’
We went from 3G to 4G, and now we are in the fifth generation of mobile broadband technologies. These technologies never stop evolving… we are now looking at the deployment by many operators of 5G Advanced.
5G Advanced is that bridge between 5G and what comes next, which, as most of your listeners will know, will be 6G. We don’t fully know what 6G is, but we know it’s coming next. Many people think it will be around the 2030 timeframe.
These technologies never stop; they are constantly evolving… the reality is 5G is here, and we are constantly evolving 5G.”
Talking about the key differences between 5G and previous generations, Peter said:
“When we evolve these technologies, we do so with the next based upon what the consumers, what the end users need.
Obviously, a lot of times that’s increased data, increased capacity. People are using richer applications, more applications, and spending more time on their devices.”
Peter Jarich also explains the role of 5G in supporting industry use cases:
“What’s particularly important is meeting the needs of industries—not just consumers and mobile phones or tablets—but how do we meet the needs of industries, connecting things like sensors, connecting IoT devices.
How do we meet the requirements of industries that may need low latency? A lot of these applications might need a very low latency.
5G sets itself apart by saying, ‘We know you’re going to need more capacity, higher data rates—that’s a given.’ But what else is important?
What’s critical for digital industries are things like low latency, reliability, dedicated speeds, and dedicated connectivity, with performance requirements that have to be met.
We’re just about halfway through the 5G era, and we’re still finding new applications.”
The Future of business in a digital age
Peter Jarich highlights the growing digital industry and the need for telecoms to seize new opportunities, focusing on AI and enterprise transformation.
“If I go back to what I was saying around 5G… those investments were taking place with the understanding that those networks would be able to support consumer and enterprise users.
The enterprise side was important… it’s a largely untapped revenue opportunity for operators with a huge upside.
If we can make those enterprises more efficient, much more energy efficient, great for the environment… if we can make them more productive, wonderful for economies.
We understand driving mobile broadband technologies improves GDP for every increase in adoption… increases in GDP if we can improve industries.”
Talkin about the 5G’s role in enabling future technologies, Peter said::
“It’s going to play to enabling things like AI… and it’s going to require things like being able to support massive amounts of IoT.
Ultimately it sets the way for what’s next and being able to set the stage for further innovation for those folks.”
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