KeepingUp with Innovations in Telecommunications

Kyrylo Goncharuk, CPO, Ukrtelecom

1. How well do you manage to keep up with the latest achievements and innovations in telecommunications or networking that help cope with hardships and meet business challenges and requirements?

We use the latest market best practices to provide our clients with the most up-to-date technologies and approaches. However, for complex infrastructures in telecom, the introduction of technologies require serious transformations and time – it cannot always be done overnight, that is, in a few days, and sometimes even months. Often, such changes require a transformation of the entire infrastructure.

In other words, the telecom industry has undergone a complete infrastructure transformation over the last 5-6 years, changing the landscape to provide businesses with the fastest services based on modern technologies.

2. If your company's security regulations allow, please share your experience of a successful digital transformation project in telecommunications where you played a key role.

There are many digital transformation projects that we have implemented in recent years. One of our biggest public cases is implementing a solution for field force management where we fully implemented a digital process of managing tasks and resources of engineers throughout the country in every settlement.

"The telecom industry has undergone a complete infrastructure transformation over the last 5-6 years, changing the landscape to provide businesses with the fastest services based on modern technologies."

There are a lot of transformational projects for the transition to low-code/no-code technologies, where we allowed business clients to change their service processes all by themselves and practically online. That is, companies, independently and by their own needs, change and adjust processes, and the IT department only controls how these operations are delivered in the industrial environment and whether these changes will affect other areas or processes.

3. Are current problems with technology integration, network infrastructure, and other regulatory compliance challenges in the telecommunications sector that current services do not address optimally?

Yes, such problematic moments exist. In Ukraine today, there are certain regulatory restrictions for using cloud technologies. On the one hand, it’s our country’s security. However, there’s a strong necessity to ensure failure resistance of the infrastructure and the efficiency of the use of resources in the current conditions.

The use of cloud technologies is very effective from the point of view of efficiency in using the infrastructure and ensuring the continuity of business and IT services. So, there must be a balance between regulatory requirements and modern approaches, as it is not always possible to apply the latter due to regulatory restrictions or legacy services used in the infrastructure.

4. Can you single out the most exciting technology trend you are following or researching in the networking industry, and is it beneficial to your business?

In my opinion, the most exciting or important trend is the transition of the whole world to “connected everything,” when all devices will be connected, and AI will be used to optimise and improve work efficiency. However, today, we do not have the infrastructure and regulatory field for implementing such technologies.

I am sure that in the process of Ukraine's restoration, including the digital one, the regulatory field will be adjusted to introduce such technologies. So, we will be able to provide customers with the infrastructure to use the most effective IT devices and AI.

5. Can you give a few tips, suggestions, or warnings to your colleagues from other companies, from the point of view of do's or don'ts?

First of all, focus on cyber security because the threat of cyber-attacks and cybercrimes increases every time. We thought that 2022 marked the maximum number of attacks. However, we noticed that the number of attacks is increasing, and their complexity is developing. Therefore, the maximum focus today must be to protect infrastructure and telecom operators' users.