- Tele2 IoT reports more than 500,000 automotive connections worldwide
- Cisco’s connectivity management platform supports global deployments
- The company’s managing director says physical AI will require new capacity planning and commercial models
The next expansion of artificial intelligence will put a different kind of pressure on communications networks. Cars, robots and utility systems need connections that let software observe the physical world and act on what it finds. For carriers, that creates an opportunity to become part of the machinery of intelligence itself.
Onur Kasaba, managing director of Tele2 IoT, has a name for that role: “the neural network of physical AI.” It is also shaping where the company puts its money. Automotive, he argued, offers an early commercial foundation for the wider development of physical AI.
The scale is already substantial. In an interview with Fierce Network TV, Kasaba said Tele2 IoT serves more than 20 million SIMs globally across more than 190 countries. Its automotive connections now exceed 500,000.
Faster deployments leave less room for error
Those connections support familiar functions, including telemetry that tells manufacturers how vehicles and components perform, alongside navigation and entertainment services. But the pace of deployment is changing. Kasaba says electric vehicle programs are moving faster, shortening the interval between shipping SIMs and cars reaching the market.
Revenue arrives sooner. So does the deadline for getting everything right.
That compressed timetable leaves less room to fix deployment errors. Kasaba identifies deployment quality as a central challenge for Tele2 and its customers, and a reason for working with established technology partners. The economics of faster deployment depend on the infrastructure being ready when the vehicle is.
Cisco's platform helps Tele2 punch above its weight
Cisco sits at the center of that operational relationship. Tele2 uses its connectivity management platform to manage connections across a geographically dispersed device population. The companies also work together on latency and quality of service, Kasaba says.
Cisco’s experience helped Tele2 establish itself in automotive, giving a newer entrant access to a tested operational environment. Kasaba says the partnership helped the business “punch way above our weight in the beginning.” As applications become more sophisticated, he saw that established platform as a way to manage the accompanying risk.
Each industry needs something different
The requirements vary considerably between industries. A moving vehicle carrying entertainment traffic presents different demands from a utility meter reporting its condition. For the latter, Kasaba emphasized resilience and availability; a short delay in a meter reading can be acceptable.
The differences begin with the hardware. Automotive SIMs undergo vibration testing, while other deployments may require different environmental tolerances. APIs then help integrate connectivity into the customer’s systems. A global network still has to accommodate the particular machine attached to it.
AI could also change the return on those connections. Kasaba argued that smart-city sensors have often supplied information for dashboards. AI gives organizations greater scope to act on the data, while simulation allows them to examine potential changes before sending people into the field.
That creates a stronger incentive to connect equipment. It also raises a capacity question that reaches well beyond the radio network.
Planning for the N-dimensional network
During our conversation, I described this as an N-dimensional network: one that extends outward beyond the traditional carrier or WAN edge into vehicles, factories and machines, and upward into space through satellite connectivity. For the carrier or communication service provider, the challenge is to connect these expanding domains into a system that can support intelligence wherever the physical work happens.
Kasaba said communication service providers must reassess capacity throughout their infrastructure, from antennas and core networks to billing, operational support and policy control systems. Planning must account for accelerating growth rather than simply extend yesterday’s consumption patterns.
His example is humanoid robotics. Tele2 is testing robots whose data use he described in terabytes, compared with the gigabytes associated with connected cars. He did not specify an equivalent measurement period, but the comparison illustrates the scale of change he expects.
For Tele2, automotive provides a place to develop that approach while deployments, customer expectations and network demands keep changing.
The commercial model needs similar attention. As Kasaba put it: “The old monetization methodologies will be very quickly irrelevant.” Carriers preparing to connect physical AI therefore face two investment decisions at once: how much capacity to build, and how to charge for the increasingly demanding services that capacity must support.
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Stephen M. Saunders MBE is a communications analyst and USPTO-registered inventor examining how digital infrastructure — 5G, cloud and AI — is reshaping industry, power and society, as well as underpinning the emerging, ubiquitous global digital economy. As anchor of FNTV and a longtime industry insider, he focuses less on growth narratives and more on execution, risk and how hyperscale technology is distorting markets, governance and society at scale.
Opinion pieces from industry experts, analysts or our editorial staff do not represent the opinions of Fierce Network.