As broadband providers expand fiber footprints and deliver higher access speeds, many customer experience issues continue to originate inside the home. Wi-Fi performance remains one of the most common drivers of support calls, yet it is also among the hardest problems for operators to diagnose. Once traffic moves beyond the access network, visibility drops sharply, leaving providers to rely on customer reports rather than real-time insight. That lack of visibility has turned in-home connectivity into a persistent operational blind spot.
Nokia Vice President of Broadband Devices Vimal Kothandaraman said the industry is increasingly focused on using AI-based analysis to address that gap. “Wi-Fi is ultimately what is going as a problem inside the home network,” he said. By correlating data on device behavior, signal quality and performance trends, operators can gain a clearer picture of what is happening inside the home when customers reach out for support. “When the call comes in, the operator is fully tuned into whatever is happening in the home,” Kothandaraman said, pointing to improved insight around where devices drop off and where signal strength degrades. Over time, he added, greater automation could allow networks to identify and address issues before customers are aware of them, shifting Wi-Fi support from reactive troubleshooting to more autonomous recovery.
Tommy Clift:
Vimal, thanks so much for joining us here, Fiber Connect, day two, on the floor. So you guys have announced quite a few AI capabilities this year, Corteca AI being one of them. Can you tell me a bit about that particular platform?
Vimal Kothandaraman:
Sure. Thanks for having me here. It's all about consumer broadband experience. It's a set of tools for the operator where the CAR agent is able to resolve the issue, and provide a better experience. Because when the call comes in, the operator is fully tuned into whatever is happening in the home, what kind of issues are there, where the clients are dropping off, where the wifi performance is weak, where the signals are not received well. So all of these insights are readily available for the CAR agent for them to respond and be able to quickly resolve the issue.
The other thing is also, the usage data is collected in such a way and the insights are provided in such a way that if there is a potential degradation of the service, these are identified already upfront, and fixes are provided by the operator towards the user even before the user is able to detect that.
So, it's about making sure that the end user's home wifi network is fully, fully autonomous and is able to recover if there are any issues before the user realizes. So that's the whole context where the benefit is actually providing that experience for the consumers.
Tommy Clift:
Vimal, thanks so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it.
Vimal Kothandaraman:
Thank you so much for having me here.