Airtel Nigeria says its new artificial intelligence (AI) monitoring system that tracks every device on its network is helping the operator resolve service issues faster and improve customer satisfaction in Africa’s biggest telecoms market.
Harmanpreet Dhillon, Chief Technology Officer at Airtel Nigeria, tells Technology Times that the system gives the company a competitive advantage.
“Compared to other telcos, we can proactively identify and resolve network issues that may be impacting user experience. Other telcos without this capability will rely on historic data or customer complaints to fix issues, whereas Airtel can resolve customer issues more speedily,” Dhillon says.
The system, which uses AI, evaluates calls, data sessions and other customer interactions to detect weak points. Dhillon says it goes beyond reacting to complaints. “It is predictive in identifying potential network issues before they occur.”
At a media roundtable in Lagos, Airtel executives explain that the technology allows the company to analyse performance at the level of individual buildings, neighbourhoods and cities.
The system, which uses AI, evaluates calls, data sessions and other customer interactions to detect weak points. Dhillon says it goes beyond reacting to complaints. “It is predictive in identifying potential network issues before they occur.”
With AI, Airtel Nigeria says it can resolve customer issues “more speedily”
“We’ve basically invented a tool that gives us the ability to be able to see every device on our network. Not for your personal information, but for the network side,” Joshua Eru, Head of Network Programme Management at the telecoms company says. “So with that, we can look at every single neighbourhood, wherever you are. We are able to evaluate your experience and come up with a solution that fits that particular place.”
Eru says the tool is helping the telco adapt to the challenges of serving large cities such as Lagos. “If you have a city as big as Lagos, every single community in Lagos is different. Victoria Island is different from Ikate, for instance. So basically, for each of these locations, we do an analysis and solution that fits each of those places,” he says.
Dhillon adds that the company is shifting its performance benchmarks from traditional network indicators to customer experience-based metrics. “Since our customers are central to all we do, the shift to Customer experience has increased the size and focus of our intervention, thereby vastly improving customer satisfaction in a measurable way.”
He says the telco has also prioritised data security. “Airtel is fiercely committed to the security of customer data. To this end, customer data is not only anonymised; it is also encrypted.”
Eru says the tool is helping Airtel adapt to the challenges of serving large cities such as Lagos. “If you have a city as big as Lagos, every single community in Lagos is different. Victoria Island is different from Ikate, for instance. So basically, for each of these locations, we do an analysis and solution that fits each of those places,” he says.
“Before we used to look at network and how the APIs work,” he explains. “Now we are looking at a summation of all customer experiences. And from there we know which part is weak, which part is strong, which part is consistently weak, and we are able to take actions. So I think that’s a very important tool. It uses a lot of AI because we are talking about billions of transactions happening every day.”
The monitoring tool is part of wider investments the telco is making to expand its fibre network, roll out 5G services and improve resilience against frequent fibre cuts in Nigeria. At the Lagos event, company executives say the telco has doubled capital spending to strengthen infrastructure and adapt to surging data demand.
The Nigerian telecoms sector, which contributes about 14.40% to GDP as of Q4 2024, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), is grappling with rising data use, vandalism of fibre infrastructure and uneven quality of service. The NCC has classified fibre networks as critical national infrastructure, making damage a criminal offence, in a bid to curb disruptions.
Airtel, Nigeria’s second-largest operator with 58,965,827 million subscribers, says its predictive monitoring tool will help win trust in a competitive market where customers increasingly demand reliable connectivity.
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