The term “cloud-native mobile network operator” is mentioned frequently in industry circles, but outside of telecom boardrooms, it often elicits blank stares. That’s a problem, because what it actually means – and why it matters – is becoming one of the more consequential conversations in ASEAN’s digital infrastructure story right now.
Malaysia’s Tune Talk triggered that conversation this week by announcing it has completed its transformation into a fully cloud-native MNO, achieved through a partnership with Mavenir, a US-based network software provider. According to the company’s account, it is the first operator in ASEAN to reach this milestone entirely.
Before unpacking why that matters, it’s worth answering the obvious question first.
What’s a cloud-native mobile network operator?
Traditional mobile networks are built around physical, specialised hardware – boxes installed in facilities, tied to vendors, configured manually, and upgraded only when someone comes in with new equipment. Adding a service or expanding capacity meant long procurement cycles, hardware integrations, and drawn-out rollout timelines. For decades, this was simply how telecoms worked.
A cloud-native mobile network operator replaces that model with software. Instead of hardware-bound functions, the network runs as software layers hosted in cloud environments – the same underlying principle that allows banks to deploy new features through an app update not replacing ATMs in the country.
The network becomes programmable. Services can be deployed, scaled, or adjusted through software, often without touching physical infrastructure at all.
Two systems sit at the core of any operator’s ability to function: the OSS (Operations Support System), which manages the network itself, and the BSS (Business Support System), which handles everything customer-facing – billing, service management, subscriptions.
Tune Talk has now moved both onto Mavenir’s cloud-native platforms, giving it end-to-end software control of its entire operation. That full-stack change is what “fully cloud-native” actually means – and it’s more than a partial virtualisation.
Why it matters in ASEAN
ASEAN’s telecom landscape is a study in contrasts. Commercial 5G services now live in eight of the bloc’s member states – Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam – yet adoption remains deeply uneven.
According to an Opensignal analysis published in October 2025, markets where mid-band spectrum was allocated early and deployed at scale, like Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines, are seeing 5G speeds roughly five to six times faster than 4G. But in markets where rollouts remain fragmented – Indonesia, Brunei, Laos – the gains are marginal.
The bottleneck, increasingly, is not spectrum or ambition. It is the weight of legacy infrastructure. Operators built on traditional hardware architectures face enormous complexity when modernising – the existing systems must keep running during any transition, which slows everything down.
As NUS Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy professor Vu Minh Khương noted at the launch of a July 2025 report on 5G and AI in ASEAN, “2025 is an important juncture in the global deployment of 5G technology,” with ASEAN countries needing to accelerate adoption in the next five years to build a foundation for the region’s next digital leap.
A cloud-native mobile network operator sidesteps much of that complexity. The architecture features what the industry calls zero-touch processes – automated network functions that reduce manual intervention – with self-healing systems that can detect and recover from faults without waiting for a technician. For leaner operators without the human and capital resources of the region’s telco giants, this kind of operational efficiency is not an incremental improvement. It’s a different way of running a network entirely.
Tune Talk’s move, and what it signals
Tune Talk’s deployment with Mavenir has already translated the change into visible output. The new architecture enabled it to fast-track integrations, including MyDigital ID, Mastercard ID Theft Protection, free Personal Accident Insurance, foodpanda benefits, and in-app streaming subscriptions. These are services that require the kind of agile backend that legacy systems simply cannot deliver quickly.
“Becoming a fully cloud-native MNO is the start of a new chapter for Tune Talk and reinforces our ambition to build a smarter, more agile mobile network for Malaysia and beyond,” said CEO Gurtaj Singh Padda. “The foundations let us move faster, personalise services at scale, and unlock new value through AI-driven innovation for our growing customer base.”
Phase two of the rollout will deepen the AI layer – advanced orchestration, next-generation BSS, contextual and personalised service offers. The trajectory maps onto a broader conversation about what modern telecom operators should actually be: not connectivity utilities, but technology companies that happen to run networks.
Mavenir President and CEO Pardeep Kohli described the approach as “essential to letting the speed, flexibility and efficiency” that this kind of operator needs remain competitive. For ASEAN, the significance lies less in Tune Talk’s size and more in the proof of concept. Larger operators in the region have been cautiously virtualising parts of their networks for years, but full cloud-native transformation has remained the domain of greenfield builds or well-resourced incumbents.
Tune Talk’s completion of this change – as a relatively small operator, in a competitive market – shows it is achievable without the infrastructure budgets of a Singtel or a Telkomsel.
See also: Why AI is altering planning for 6G mobile networks
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