Breaking the trilemma: discover how a TM Forum Catalyst Project unlocks network autonomy and efficiency

For too long, telecommunication (telco) service providers have faced an unforgiving trilemma: whether to optimize for scale, reliability, efficiency—or all three? The harsh reality has often meant having to  sacrifice one of these—typically efficiency. With increased market demands and customer expectations, scale and reliability have become non-negotiables, cornering service providers into rising operational costs and falling profit margins. But what if you didn't have to compromise? What if you could achieve scale, reliability and efficiency?

The key to this lies in a fundamental transformation: shifting from reactive task-based automation to proactive intent-based automation. This means evolving network lifecycle management—from planning and deployment through operations and decommissioning—to be driven by business intents and a sophisticated knowledge base.

The TM Forum Catalyst project, End-to-end service realization using intent-based networks, combines the TM Forum Autonomous Networks Reference Architecture, including autonomous domains and intent management functions, with O-RAN interfaces and functions, such as R1 and SMO. This project demonstrates the practical implementation of TM Forum open application programming interfaces (APIs) and intent-based automation across multiple layers. Used together, these help build a self-adaptive system that dramatically reduces service providers’ costs through unprecedented automation.

Together, we're pushing the boundaries to demonstrate the technical feasibility of these APIs, actively identifying and working to close any gaps.

Key technologies of the TM Forum Catalyst project

Autonomous network

An autonomous intelligent network is a fully automated, zero-touch deployment and operations infrastructure for information and communication technology (ICT) services that is self-configuring, self-healing, self-optimizing and self-evolving.

To function properly, an autonomous intelligent network has to be highly automated, with data analytics and AI models providing deep learning for advanced decision-making, and autonomy and governance providing privacy and use policies to enforce compliant deployment and operational decisions and actions. Red Hat provides 3 key open source-based automation capabilities, such as event-driven automation, GitOps and AIOps.

Autonomous network level 4

TM Forum defines 5 levels of autonomous networks. Level 4 builds upon level 3's conditional automation by introducing high levels of autonomy with closed-loop, intent-driven operations and predictive capabilities. It's a significant step towards level 5's fully autonomous, self-adapting networks that operate without human intervention. Level 4 autonomous networks represent a significant advancement from level 3, where systems primarily assist human decision-making. In level 4, the network operates with a high degree of self-governance, driven by intent and predictive analysis for cross-domain operations. Level 5 is the ultimate goal: fully autonomous networks with closed-loop automation across all services and domains. Currently, the telco industry is largely transitioning between level 2 (partial automation) and level 3 (conditional automation), with some pioneering service providers and specific use cases starting to touch level 4 capabilities. The journey to higher autonomy is ongoing.

The O-Cloud

A crucial aspect is integrating TM Forum-based management with modern network architectures like the O-RAN, and the underlying network functions and cloud infrastructure for creating an open and flexible environment for innovation. Red Hat provides key components for the O-Cloud. In the O-RAN architecture, the O-Cloud manager plays a crucial role, working with the service management and orchestration (SMO) via O2 interfaces for infrastructure and container-as-a-service (CaaS) management. The O-RAN architecture promotes a disaggregated model where RAN components (like the radio unit - RU, distributed unit - DU and centralized unit - CU) can come from different vendors and run on a common application platform. Key responsibilities of the O-Cloud Manager include installation, provisioning, fault management (FM), inventory and Day 2 lifecycle management.

Benefits of the TM Forum Catalyst project

With the TM Forum Catalyst project, service providers benefit from:

• Unified intent across layers: Experience the TM Forum intent ontology in action, consistently managing everything from high-level business objectives and product/service intent to the specifics of network functions. We show how this combines with strategic service provider intent for true business alignment.
• Open APIs v5 – intent-ready: See the maturity of intent-driven interactions within the latest TM Forum Open APIs (Version 5), enabling robust automation and interoperability.
• Realizing O-RAN SMO with TM Forum standards: See demonstrations of TM Forum resource-facing service management realizing critical Service Orchestration (SO) and Service Assurance (SA) within the O-RAN SMO.
• Intelligent rApp deployment: Explore intent-driven rApps (non-realtime RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) applications), based on the TM Forum Intent Ontology, optimizing network traffic and performance. This includes combining rApps from multiple sources within the non-realtime RIC, fostering an open ecosystem.
• Boosting industry collaboration: This catalyst project actively contributes to TM Forum's collaborative projects by:
  • Introducing the concept of "soft requirements" for more adaptable service definitions.
  • Advancing "conflict management coordination" in complex intent scenarios.
  • Identifying and helping to "close potential gaps" in crucial intent and service management artifacts.

The impacts on the telco service provider industry

Implementing end-to-end service realization enhances the quality of experience (QoE), reducing churn through targeted radio improvements and increasing customer satisfaction. It also boosts average revenue per user (ARPU) by providing richer user experiences with intent-based features. Asset investment becomes more efficient through optimized spectrum and RAN utilization, leading to capital expenditure (capex) avoidance and improved return on investment (ROI). It also increases operational efficiency by reducing costs through saved engineering time and accurate investments, and avoided costs through increased team productivity and optimization campaigns. These factors contribute to overall performance improvement and financial gains.

Want to learn more?

The journey to autonomous networks and breaking free from the operational trilemma is underway. This TM Forum Catalyst project provides a clear roadmap and tangible proof points.

Join us at our booth at the DTW Ignite in Copenhagen from June 17-19, 2025 as we showcase, with our partners, the TM Forum Catalyst project “End-to-end service realization using intent-based networks.” We’ll explore how these pioneering solutions can transform your network operations and discuss how we can collaborate to build a more intelligent, autonomous and efficient future for telecommunications.