Inside WIA Connect(X) 365: How Telecom Is Shifting to Intelligent, Automated Operations

Author: Chris Balandran

I recently joined the WIA Connect(X) 365 webinar on intelligent assets, and it confirmed something many of us in the industry have felt for a long time: telecom infrastructure is hitting an inflection point. Teams are overwhelmed by manual work, data lives in too many places, and the workflows that keep our networks running haven’t meaningfully changed in decades. 

What made this discussion different was how concrete the panelists were about where things are headed. Leaders from AT&T, Phoenix Tower International, and Pathwave weren’t talking about experimentation. They were talking about operating models. 

Jamie from AT&T put it plainly when describing their direction: 

“We’re trying to move away from Excel files and PDFs and toward digital artifacts and data that can actually be orchestrated end to end.” 

That shift showed up repeatedly throughout the conversation. Digital twins are no longer a novelty. Automated audits are no longer optional. And intelligence is no longer something layered on top of operations, it is becoming the foundation.   

Clint reinforced this by pointing out how deeply embedded digitization has become inside AT&T’s workflow: 

“We want the data to flow straight into our systems within hours, not days, so teams can actually act on it.”   

This mirrors what we see every day at Inorsa. Telecom teams are under pressure to scale faster, with fewer resources, while reducing time to revenue. The only way forward is to reshape how work gets done by automating ingestion, validation, and generation of infrastructure data so asset activation happens in days, not months.   

Over the next two posts, I’ll dig into the operational pain points the panel surfaced and the requirements shaping what comes next for telecom infrastructure. 

👉 Watch the full Connect (X) 365 Webinar on Evolving Infrastructure: Turning Sites into Intelligent Assets.