AT&T SPOTLIGHTS WORKFORCE CHALLENGE IN CLOUD PUSH

INTERVIEW: An AT&T executive flagged staff skills as one of the key challenges around moves to deploy cloud and edge computing capabilities, with gaps in the knowledge base requiring a focus on training.

In an interview for Mobile World Live’s ‘Moving to a Future Software World’ Themed Week, AT&T VP of technology and innovation Mazin Gilbert (pictured) noted difficulty finding employees whose understanding spans key concepts including 5G, edge computing, AI, data analytics, virtualisation, software, white boxes and disaggregation.

“There’s no such person who knows all of the above, so some of the challenge is really training our workforce with these new technologies”.

“We don’t expect one person to know everything, but we expect us to make the right decision to know who to partner with to build what.”

Gilbert pointed to training as one of a trio of challenges facing the operator, closely related to the hurdles of predicting where to make investments for the future and knowing how best to weave together a wide range of technologies to deliver transformative services.

He teased forthcoming announcements about the operator’s next generation infrastructure and applications, while predicting the next three-to-five years would be transformative: “2025 is going to be a very different experience, a very different world than what we are living in right now”.