At Mobile World Congress 2026, Mobile World Live spoke with Avnish Chauhan, Chief Technology Officer at Mobileum, and Miguel Carames, Chief Product Officer at Mobileum, about how telecom operators can move beyond connectivity to create new sources of business value.
The message is clear: the next phase of telecom growth will not come from connectivity alone, but from the intelligence, security, and programmable capabilities built on top of the network.
As subscriber growth slows in many mature markets and connectivity becomes increasingly commoditized, operators are under pressure to find new ways to monetize their infrastructure. At the same time, modern telecom networks generate enormous volumes of real-time operational and mobility data.
Advances in big data platforms, artificial intelligence, agentic AI systems, and GPU-accelerated infrastructure are now enabling operators to convert this data into intelligence that can power new services and business models.
The Shift from Connectivity to Intelligence
For decades, telecom operators built their business models around delivering reliable connectivity. That foundation remains essential, but the nature of telecom networks is evolving.
Today’s networks produce rich streams of signaling, usage, behavioral, and mobility data. With modern data architectures and AI-driven analytics, operators can transform these signals into insights that improve both internal operations and external services.
First, internally. Operators can use data-driven insights and AI solutions to improve operations by:
The emergence of agentic AI systems, where AI agents are capable of reasoning, monitoring conditions, collaborating, and triggering actions, can further accelerate this shift. Instead of relying solely on human-driven workflows, operators can deploy AI agents that continuously analyze network conditions, identify risks, and automatically initiate remediation or policy adjustments.
For example, AI agents could dynamically detect abnormal traffic patterns, trigger fraud mitigation actions, or optimize routing decisions to maintain service quality.
Second, externally. Operators can expose selected capabilities and insights to partners through secure platforms and APIs.
Telecom networks possess unique assets, such as location awareness, identity verification, and real-time quality-of-service controls, that other industries cannot easily replicate. When packaged as programmable services, these capabilities can enable new solutions across sectors such as finance, transportation, digital platforms, and enterprise connectivity.
In this model, the network evolves from a connectivity utility into an intelligence platform.
Roaming Is Becoming Experience-Led
Roaming provides a clear example of how telecom services are evolving. Historically, roaming was largely a wholesale price optimization exercise between operators. Today, the focus is shifting toward delivering a seamless and high-quality experience for both consumers and connected devices.
1. Seamless Consumer Connectivity
For travelers, the ideal roaming experience is simple: land in a new country and immediately connect to the best available network without needing to manually configure plans or device settings.
As roaming economics have become more predictable in many markets, operators are increasingly focusing on experience quality rather than pricing alone. Intelligent network selection, performance monitoring, and dynamic steering can help ensure that users connect to the network that delivers the best service for their needs.
This experience-led approach creates opportunities for differentiation in what has traditionally been seen as a commoditized service.
2. Enterprise and IoT Roaming Expansion
At the same time, roaming is expanding far beyond traditional consumer travel. Enterprises now deploy millions of connected devices globally across sectors such as automotive, logistics, smart cities, and industrial automation.
These devices may rely on a mix of:
This evolving environment is transforming roaming into a multi-network connectivity framework that supports global IoT deployments. For operators, this represents an opportunity to move beyond bilateral roaming agreements and instead provide global connectivity orchestration across heterogeneous networks.
Turning Security Into a Strategic Differentiator
Security and fraud prevention are another area where operators can unlock new value. Telecom networks sit at the center of global communications infrastructure, making them a critical line of defense against scams, fraud, and identity-based attacks.
Historically, telecom security focused on protocol-level protection, such as signaling firewalls designed to detect malicious traffic in SS7 or Diameter networks. However, modern attacks increasingly span multiple technologies and communication channels, including voice, messaging, data, and digital services.
According to Avnish Chauhan, this requires a shift toward service-level security powered by AI and cross-network intelligence.
AI-driven analytics can correlate signals across multiple dimensions to detect emerging threats, including:
Here again, agentic AI can play a critical role. AI agents can continuously monitor traffic patterns, investigate suspicious signals, and trigger defensive actions such as blocking malicious traffic, alerting operators, or updating risk models.
By combining network visibility with AI-powered intelligence, operators can move from reactive fraud detection toward proactive threat prevention.
Importantly, these capabilities can also be offered as services to other industries. Financial institutions, for example, increasingly rely on telecom signals, such as device identity and location verification, to strengthen fraud prevention. This creates an opportunity for operators to position security and trust as monetizable services, rather than simply internal network protections.
Unlocking Data Monetization Through Network APIs
Another major opportunity lies in programmable networks and standardized APIs. Initiatives such as GSMA Open Gateway and the CAMARA project are working to standardize how telecom operators expose network capabilities to developers and enterprises.
Through these APIs, telecom capabilities can be embedded directly into applications and digital services. Several use cases are already emerging.
These examples highlight a broader shift: telecom networks becoming programmable infrastructure that other industries can build on.
However, success will require more than technology alone. Operators must develop scalable commercial models, developer-friendly platforms, and strong privacy frameworks to responsibly deliver these capabilities to the ecosystem.
The Future of Telecom Innovation
The telecom industry is entering a new phase where data, intelligence, automation, and programmability will define competitive advantage.
Operators that successfully navigate this transformation will focus on four priorities:
As highlighted by Mobileum’s leadership at MWC 2026, the next generation of telecom value will come not just from delivering connectivity, but from the intelligence and services built on top of it.