Most SMO platforms are configuration management dressed up as orchestration. You write the scripts. You maintain the policies. You intervene every time the network changes. Otter Agentic SMO replaces that model with AI agents built on our Telecom Foundation Model — agents that observe, reason, and act, within guardrails you define.
The promise of Open RAN is a disaggregated, vendor-agnostic, intelligently managed radio network. The reality for most operators is that their SMO is a collection of scripts, static policies, and manual change management processes that require constant human intervention to keep pace with the network.
Agentic SMO replaces the static policy-and-script model with an always-on agentic loop. Agents hold network state, reason over operator intents, take actions, and verify their own outcomes — without waiting for a human to trigger the next step.
Subscribes to all O-RAN data sources — O1 PM/FM streams, R1 data services, and cloud infrastructure metrics. Builds and continuously updates a model of network state: KPIs, topology, resource utilisation, slice SLAs, and energy consumption.
AI agents evaluate current network state against operator-defined intents and guardrails. They identify optimisation opportunities, forecast SLA breaches up to 15 minutes ahead, and resolve conflicts between competing agent objectives before acting.
Deploys rApps to the Non-RT RIC via R1, pushes A1 policies to the Near-RT RIC for xApp control, and scales cloud-native RAN workloads via O2. Every action is logged with full rationale, expected KPI impact, and a rollback plan.
Monitors every action against its expected KPI outcome. If the expected improvement doesn't materialise within the defined window, the agent automatically rolls back and escalates to the operator. Successful actions feed back to improve future decisions.
Each Otter agent operates within a defined domain and operator-approved guardrails. The agent coordinator resolves conflicts — for instance, when the Energy agent proposes sleeping cells that the SLA Guardian needs active. Operators see every decision and can override at any time.
Continuously monitors cell-level traffic, load, and KPI telemetry to identify windows where radio resources can be safely reduced. Proposes cell sleep schedules and transmit-power reduction policies, then deploys them as energy rApps to the Non-RT RIC.
Monitors per-slice KPIs — latency, throughput, packet loss, availability — against contracted SLAs. Uses trend analysis to predict degradation up to 15 minutes before subscribers are affected, then preemptively adjusts resource allocations via A1 policy.
Manages the full lifecycle of rApps hosted in the Non-RT RIC — from catalogue discovery through onboarding, staged canary rollout, automated promotion, version management, and graceful retirement. Eliminates the bespoke scripting that prevents operators from running more than a handful of rApps simultaneously.
Analyses multi-day traffic trends, event calendars, and historical patterns to forecast demand. Pre-scales cloud-native CU and DU workloads via the O2 interface ahead of known peaks — stadiums, commuter surges, planned outages — without waiting for congestion to materialise.
Otter Agentic SMO implements the O-RAN Alliance SMO interface specifications, enabling it to work with any O-RAN-compliant RU, DU, CU, or RIC regardless of vendor. The same SMO manages Nokia and Ericsson and Samsung simultaneously, over the same standardised interfaces.
Agentic SMO is an additive intelligence layer. It does not replace your Non-RT RIC, Near-RT RIC, or cloud infrastructure — it orchestrates them. It's designed to integrate in weeks, starting in read-only observer mode before any autonomous action is enabled.
Operators evaluating their SMO strategy typically have three options: a vendor-bundled SMO that ties them to one equipment supplier, an open-source SMO they must staff and maintain themselves, or a purpose-built agentic layer that adds intelligence without adding headcount.
While Agentic SMO manages your Open RAN deployment, NOC Copilot handles your operations centre. It ingests alarms from Netcool, NetAct, ENM, and any SNMP source, correlates them on the same Telecom Foundation Model, and delivers a ranked root cause to your engineers. The two products share one model and one telemetry layer — alarm events from Copilot inform SMO agent decisions.
We're partnering with a small number of operators and O-RAN vendors as design partners. We start in read-only observer mode on your O-RAN environment, demonstrate what the agents would do, and you approve any autonomous action before it's taken. No rip-and-replace, no long-term commitment.