- Telefónica Deutschland worked with Blue Planet’s AI Studio for a network slicing trial
- Blue Planet’s software sped the creation of a network slice from weeks to minutes
- The AI agent allows developers to use prompts to design the slice
DTW IGNITE 2026, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK – Telefónica Deutschland is working with Ciena’s Blue Planet to more quickly design and implement 5G network slices.
The German operator used its Multi-Domain Service Orchestration (MDSO) platform along with Blue Planet’s AI Studio for a proof of concept (PoC) to show that AI agents can spin up network slices.
According to Kailem Anderson, VP and general manager for Global Products and Delivery with Blue Planet, the design of 5G network slices has taken surprisingly long – sometimes weeks. “With Telefónica Deutschland we helped short-circuit that process,” he said. “The agent expresses the intent versus having to design all that in.”
He explained that with Blue Planet’s AI Studio, engineers can use natural language prompts to explain exactly the kind of network slice they want. The agent then creates the software, which used to require a lot of manual work and coding by humans. The whole process can be condensed into minutes, as opposed to weeks.
Fierce asked how network slicing was doing in general, and Anderson said, “A lot of operators still struggle with slicing and how to monetize it. They’re still experimenting with different types of use cases and doing a lot of design activities.”
“Designing and delivering 5G network slicing services at scale is inherently complex and places significant demands on engineering teams,” said Eva Ulicevic, director of Architecture, Strategy and Technology Enablement at Telefónica Deutschland, in a statement. “This proof of concept has shown that AI agents, when integrated with our MDSO framework, can meaningfully simplify service design, reduce lead times and help democratize expert knowledge.”
So far, 5G network slicing has not taken off like wildfire. Part of the reason is that operators have been slow to upgrade their wireless network cores to 5G standalone.
Anderson said that use cases vary by geography. In AsiaPac there’s intense interest in gaming, and operators sell network slices for that use case. In Germany, which has a lot of manufacturing, operators sell network slices for industrial IoT. In North America, network slicing has been used for major broadcast events.
“Most operators are still experimenting,” said Anderson.
According to the analyst firm Dell’Oro Group, in December 2025, 5G SA rollouts had reached a critical mass in market maturity with high population coverage in 40 countries.
The growing use of agentic AI will likely motivate more operators to update their networks to 5G SA. In turn, those 5G SA networks will be capable of network slicing.