"All this over the years got disrupted by over-the-top players, to the point that today, a lot of telcos around the world are reduced to being a pipe of packets just getting data across the networks," Dowidar added. "And competition is not staying still. They have the scale, they have the investment to go and disrupt even further."
Telcos embrace AI
Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom, told CNBC's Arjun Kharpal that the South Korean telecoms giant has looked to AI technology to help it improve the efficiency of its wireless network — something that was consistently on display at numerous telco operators' booths at MWC.