AI-RAN payback is real, but it lives in network operations

Operators and vendors at the Intelligent RAN Forum said AI-RAN already delivers measurable returns in energy savings, fault diagnosis and capacity planning. The underestimated costs are not hardware but the skills gap, legacy system integration and lifecycle management.

• Energy optimization, alarm-storm root-cause analysis and capacity planning are the main AI-RAN payoffs
• 20–50% cell-edge uplink throughput gains seen in AI-for-RAN trials about 18 months ago
• Turkcell runs more than 30 vendors in its network, with interoperability driven by standards
• No panelist cited a published customer experience metric tied to AI-RAN