mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Large Language Model (LLM) for Telecommunications: A Comprehensive Survey on Principles, Key Techniques, and Opportunities

arXiv 2405.10825 ↗First posted 17 May 2024eess.SY cs.LG cs.SYcited by 83

On the map: LLM reasoning → Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation

Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models (LLMs) have received considerable attention recently due to their outstanding comprehension and reasoning capabilities, leading to great progress in many fields. The advancement of LLM techniques also offers promising opportunities to automate many tasks in the telecommunication (telecom) field. After pre-training and fine-tuning, LLMs can perform diverse downstream tasks based on human instructions, paving the way to artificial general intelligence (AGI)-enabled 6G. Given the great potential of LLM technologies, this work aims to provide a comprehensive overview of LLM-enabled telecom networks. In particular, we first present LLM fundamentals, including model architecture, pre-training, fine-tuning, inference and utilization, model evaluation, and telecom deployment. Then, we introduce LLM-enabled key techniques and telecom applications in terms of generation, classification, optimization, and prediction problems. Specifically, the LLM-enabled generation applications include telecom domain knowledge, code, and network configuration generation. After that, the LLM-based classification applications involve network security, text, image, and traffic classification problems. Moreover, multiple LLM-enabled optimization techniques are introduced, such as automated reward function design for reinforcement learning and verbal reinforcement learning. Furthermore, for LLM-aided prediction problems, we discussed time-series prediction models and multi-modality prediction problems for telecom. Finally, we highlight the challenges and identify the future directions of LLM-enabled telecom networks.

Key facts. Cited by 83 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 135 of its 204 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 17 May 2024.

Builds on

135 of 204 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models27 Feb
  2. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models6 Oct

Other references · 133

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38 more
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50 most cited of 133 All 133 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 16; 2025: 36; 2026: 31.

83 papers.

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  1. 2024Mobile Edge Intelligence for Large Language Models: A Contemporary Surveycited by 128
  2. 2025A Comprehensive Survey on Multi-Agent Cooperative Decision-Making: Scenarios, Approaches, Challenges and Perspectivescited by 27
  3. 2024A Survey on Large Language Models for Communication, Network, and Service Management: Application Insights, Challenges, and Future Directionscited by 25
  4. 2024ORAN-Bench-13K: An Open Source Benchmark for Assessing LLMs in Open Radio Access Networkscited by 24
  5. 2024Evaluation of RAG Metrics for Question Answering in the Telecom Domaincited by 20
  6. 2024An overview of domain-specific foundation model: key technologies, applications and challengescited by 19
  7. 2024APEX: An Extensible and Dynamism-Aware Simulator for Automated Parallel Execution in LLM Servingcited by 15
  8. 2024Generative AI for the Optimization of Next-Generation Wireless Networks: Basics, State-of-the-Art, and Open Challengescited by 14
  9. 2025Generative Diffusion Models for Wireless Networks: Fundamental, Architecture, and State-of-the-Artcited by 14
  10. 20256G WavesFM: A Foundation Model for Sensing, Communication, and Localizationcited by 13
  11. 2024WDMoE: Wireless Distributed Mixture of Experts for Large Language Modelscited by 12
  12. 2025From Prompts to Protection: Large Language Model-Enabled In-Context Learning for Smart Public Safety UAVcited by 10
38 more
  1. 2025Large Language Models for Security Operations Centers: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 9
  2. 2025LLM-OptiRA: LLM-Driven Optimization of Resource Allocation for Non-Convex Problems in Wireless Communicationscited by 8
  3. 2026ComAgent: Multi-LLM based Agentic AI Empowered Intelligent Wireless Networkscited by 8
  4. 2025End-to-End Edge AI Service Provisioning Framework in 6G ORANcited by 7
  5. 2025The Larger the Merrier? Efficient Large AI Model Inference in Wireless Edge Networkscited by 7
  6. 2026Agentic AI Empowered Intent-Based Networking for 6Gcited by 7
  7. 2025MoE2: Optimizing Collaborative Inference for Edge Large Language Modelscited by 6
  8. 2025Large Language Models in Operations Research: Methods, Applications, and Challengescited by 6
  9. 2026RF-GPT: Teaching AI to See the Wireless Worldcited by 6
  10. 2024Neuralink: Fast LLM Inference on Smartphones with Neuron Co-Activation Linkingcited by 5
  11. 2025LAMeTA: Intent-Aware Agentic Network Optimization via a Large AI Model-Empowered Two-Stage Approachcited by 5
  12. 2025Mapping the Landscape of Generative AI in Network Monitoring and Managementcited by 4
  13. 2025Bridging Physical and Digital Worlds: Embodied Large AI for Future Wireless Systemscited by 4
  14. 2025FRSICL: LLM-Enabled In-Context Learning Flight Resource Allocation for Fresh Data Collection in UAV-Assisted Wildfire Monitoringcited by 4
  15. 2025Symbiotic Agents: A Novel Paradigm for Trustworthy AGI-driven Networkscited by 4
  16. 2025Semantic Reformulation Entropy for Robust Hallucination Detection in QA Taskscited by 4
  17. 2024Large Language Model as a Catalyst: A Paradigm Shift in Base Station Siting Optimizationcited by 3
  18. 2024LLM-TS Integrator: Integrating LLM for Enhanced Time Series Modelingcited by 3
  19. 2024Telco-DPR: A Hybrid Dataset for Evaluating Retrieval Models of 3GPP Technical Specificationscited by 3
  20. 2025Revealing Multimodal Causality with Large Language Modelscited by 3
  21. 2026Multi-Modal Data-Enhanced Foundation Models for Prediction and Control in Wireless Networks: A Surveycited by 3
  22. 2026Enhancing Large Language Models (LLMs) for Telecom using Dynamic Knowledge Graphs and Explainable Retrieval-Augmented Generationcited by 3
  23. 20266GAgentGym: Tool Use, Data Synthesis, and Agentic Learning for Network Managementcited by 3
  24. 2024TeleOracle: Fine-Tuned Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Long-Context Support for Networkcited by 2
  25. 2025Large AI Model for Delay-Doppler Domain Channel Prediction in 6G OTFS-Based Vehicular Networkscited by 2
  26. 2025Intelligent Orchestration of Distributed Large Foundation Model Inference at the Edgecited by 2
  27. 2025From Large AI Models to Agentic AI: A Tutorial on Future Intelligent Communicationscited by 2
  28. 2025Interpretable Anomaly-Based DDoS Detection in AI-RAN with XAI and LLMscited by 2
  29. 2025Joint Partitioning and Placement of Foundation Models for Real-Time Edge AIcited by 2
  30. 2025Enhancing Large Language Models (LLMs) for Telecommunications using Knowledge Graphs and Retrieval-Augmented Generationcited by 1
  31. 2025LLMs' Suitability for Network Security: A Case Study of STRIDE Threat Modelingcited by 1
  32. 2025ReaCritic: Reasoning Transformer-based DRL Critic-model Scaling For Wireless Networkscited by 1
  33. 2025Understanding 6G through Language Models: A Case Study on LLM-aided Structured Entity Extraction in Telecom Domaincited by 1
  34. 2025TeleEval-OS: Performance evaluations of large language models for operations schedulingcited by 1
  35. 2025Information Security Based on LLM Approaches: A Reviewcited by 1
  36. 2025Evaluating Open-Source Large Language Models for Technical Telecom Question Answeringcited by 1
  37. 2025Banking Done Right: Redefining Retail Banking with Language-Centric AIcited by 1
  38. 2025N-GLARE: An Non-Generative Latent Representation-Efficient LLM Safety Evaluatorcited by 1

50 most cited of 83 All 83 (JSON)

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  2. 2024Telecom Language Models: Must They Be Large?
  3. 2024WirelessLLM: Empowering Large Language Models Towards Wireless Intelligence
  4. 2024Large Language Models (LLMs) Assisted Wireless Network Deployment in Urban Settings
  5. 2024Generative AI-in-the-loop: Integrating LLMs and GPTs into the Next Generation Networks
  6. 2025TeleMath: A Benchmark for Large Language Models in Telecom Mathematical Problem Solving
  7. 2025Large Language Models for Wireless Communications: From Adaptation to Autonomy
  8. 2024Sentinels of the Stream: Unleashing Large Language Models for Dynamic Packet Classification in Software Defined Networks -- Position Paper