Telecom industry interesting news & developments

Journey to 5G adoption: Key network transformation areas

2021-07-13T17:16:00.004+05:30

Journey to 5G adoption: Key network transformation areas

Adoption of 5G is one of the major focus areas of most global Telco providers currently with hopes of utilizing 5G to provide many new services to users & creating new revenue streams. In order to achieve the same Telcos have been on a network transformation journey from last 4–5years by initially focusing on virtualizing their Infrastructure & Network Elements & then on moving network to the cloud by adopting cloud technologies. However, based on where the operator is located,the regulatory norms and technology adoption status in the region and their financial health, the operators are in different phases of the transformation.

While transformation is essentially never ending, in this article we will be briefly looking into the key areas of network transformation that network operators need to focus on as part of their 5G adoption roadmap to realize maximum benefits of 5G.

Key focus areas to consider as part of Network Transformation for maximum 5G benefits

For the 5G Network to be most efficient the design should ensure that it’s “Agile to the core” and to achieve this the target should be to build 5G network on a network cloud, using “Open” architecture, leveraging disruptive technologies like AI/ML/Cloud & having automation built in.

Below are some key focus areas that should be considered as they are either essential for 5G or recommended :

1. Adopting Cloud Technologies:

5G has been designed incorporating Cloud infrastructure as its foundation & in order to see the true potential, its essential cloud technologies are adopted throughout the network. Depending on the workloads/use case & the expected amount of traffic decision can be taken on the type of cloud setup required (private/public/hybrid) and the service type to be utilized on each cloud (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS).

Adoption of cloud technologies, will also help the Telcos to better manage the data center traffic, associated CAPEX & OPEX costs & provide additional avenues for Data redundancy ( subject to regulations).

2. Containers based Microservices Architecture:

Microservices is one of the big developments of last decade which has changed the way applications are built, packaged & ultimately deployed by decomposing the monolithic application into services modules where each service is a functionality that is performed by the application. Microservices implementation has enabled service modules to be developed independently and in parallel to each other making the development cycle more agile and enabling faster turn around time for the application. Also as each service is independent, each service is deploy-able independently as per continuous deployment methodology & scaled as well independently as and when required.

With software becoming independent since introduction of virtualization & containerization in Telecom, the microservices based architecture has become the requirement for application/software which are part of Telecom architecture. Additionally, with cloud & cloud technologies serving as base for 5G(including some 4G implementations) and all latest telecom technologies, containerized versions of applications/software has become necessity to be able to utilize the benefits provided by cloud computing & to be able to utilize the portability benefit provided by containers in Telcos Hybrid Cloud Setup.

3. OSS/BSS Modernization:

Modernization of BSS (Business Support System) & OSS (Operations Support System) is not something new to 5G. However, it is a crucial from perspective of 5G benefits realization.

As per the points we have discussed above, the BSS/OSS systems should undergo digital transformation such that in the end it is essentially running on cloud, having microservices based implementation deployed as containers & leveraging automation & orchestration in its entire setup where ever possible along with Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning capabilities in order to achieve close to perfect “Zero Touch Provisioning”. Also, to further ensure OSS/BSS is having “Open” architecture the systems should be compliant to TMForum standard specified interfaces and OpenAPIs.

From 5G perspective, The dream scenario would be for the entire use case/service order journey till activation to take place with a click of a button. Eg: If telco’s customer wants an IoT service then:

Order would be fed manually into the CPQ software (Configure, Price, Quote).
The CPQ would interface with the BSS systems (Product/Service Catalog, CRM(Customer Relationship Manager)) to check available catalog options, getting/updating customer data and provide pricing to customer.
The sales agent would accept the price or make any necessary correction and submit the order.
Once order is submitted then order would go to order system, update inventory systems and then service design should takes place where service order is decomposed into workflow tasks.
The workflow tasks are executed by service/network provisioning and finally orchestration & activation for both IoT device as well as the IoT service on 5G Core (including 5G slice selection if setup) through domain/service orchestrator like MANO.
Once service is active intimation is sent to Billing systems to bill usage to customer & customer notified of service readiness.
Also service monitoring & fault management tasks take place and in case of any issues detected by assurance system automatically closed loop assurance will get triggered to the MANO system and the network elements as applicable.

In entire journey in above dream scenario user involvement is mainly towards order time & nothing else. But in a practical scenario as well user involvement can be made minimal with proper network architecture design & digital BSS/OSS system described above.

The below figure shows the BSS/OSS systems and their connectivity from end to end perspective. of BSS/OSS cycle .

4. End to End Network Service Orchestrator

As operators started transforming their networks to include virtualization and containerization, they have started adopting different MANO(Management & Orchestration) solutions to orchestrate and mange lifecycle of Network functions (Virtual or Containerized). However, the setup is are more geared towards VNFM(VNF Managers) provided by specific vendors and VIM(Virtual Infrastructure Manager) provided by the virtualizing platform/Kubernetes. Also, involvement of NFVO(NFV Orchestrator) & G-VNFM (Generic- VNFM) is in limited capacity only within the scope of select network elements or use cases. The ETSI NFV architecture showing the MANO components can be seen in the image.

To make 5G efficient, in order to automate & orchestrate majority tasks with minimal user intervention, the operators should have an End to End Network Service Orchestrator that would handle requests from BSS OSS and manage the same by orchestrating request through existing orchestrators & overall end to end managing lifecycle of the 5g network/use case. Also the end to end orchestrator could as well serve as domain/service orchestrator if required, assist with closed loop automation & manage lifecycle of individual network functions if required.

Below image showcases end to end orchestrator in an example.

Example: An operator has deployed 3 clouds — RAN, 5G Core & Edge and looking to deliver 5G service and Edge service. Their Edge service implementation involves selection of the 5G core elements from 5G core cloud and integrating with Edge Network functions present on the Edge cloud.

For this scenario orchestration & lifecycle management, the operator has following orchestrators: (i) 3 VIMs — to manage the 3 infra cloud platforms (ii) 2 VNFM — to manage RAN & 5G Core/Edge (iii) 3 NFVO — to orchestrate & setup RAN xNFs, 5G Core xNFs & 5G/Edge service (iv) 1 End to End Network Service Orchestrator — which would receive request from SOM or Service fulfillment and automate orchestration through relevant NFVO/VNFM & appropriate VIM. Also the orchestrator would coordinate with assurance for any close loop assurance aspects.

5. ORAN implementation:

In the points covered so far, we have focused more on telecom systems perspective on which 5G technology would run rather than 5G technology network elements/architecture perspective. In this point we are looking at 1 of the core elements of 5G technology i.e. Radio Access Network (RAN). RAN along with 5G core & application servers plays a major part from 5G Network realization perspective.

Open RAN (ORAN) is essentially Cloud RAN / virtualized RAN implementation with “Open” interfaces. With goal of 5G network to be “Open” in a cloud platform, Open Cloud RAN is the obvious choice of implementation to achieve the same. Operators are already slowly migrating from traditional cell sites to deploying virtualized/cloud RAN solution and Open RAN timing essentially couldn’t be better as it saves the operators from investing too much on first migrating to vRAN/cloud RAN and then to ORAN. Also in case operator has migrated to vRAN solution implementing of ORAN will not be a big challenge as it mainly would involve deploying new xNF for Radio Unit(RU),Distributed Unit(DU) & Control Unit(CU) which support “Open” interfaces from ORAN offering of vendors.

Additionally, OpenRAN architecture has introduced a component for orchestration aspects, management and automation of RAN elements called SMO (Service Management & Orchestration). SMO’s role will be vital when 5G use cases involving Network Slicing are needed and their orchestration / management is required.

The SMO can be integrated with an E2E network service orchestrator(as mentioned in point 3) to automate the overall request process from BSS/OSS.

The ORAN architecture from ORAN Alliance is shown in image below.

ORAN Architecture

6. Service Based Architecture 5G Core:

The last key focus area is another core aspect of 5G Technology i.e. 5G core. 5G Core will be dealing with both data/voice user plane traffic as well as control plane traffic and working along with RAN for 5G connectivity & application servers for use cases realization.

Operators need to implement the 5G core which uses Service based architecture and defined by ETSI TS 123 501 . The 5G core involves separation of Control & User Plane functions based on services being implemented (essentially decomposing into microservices) and making it more modular . This implementation permits placing Control functions at more centralized locations while User plane functions at individual data center/cloud locations.Also, this architecture enables supporting of Network Slicing use cases to allot portion of Packet core for use in IoT or Edge or any other 5G use cases as required.

The 5G architecture is shown below:

5G Core Architecture

The network functions part of 5G core are: Authentication Server Function (AUSF) ; Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) ; Data Network (DN) e.g. operator services, Internet access or 3rd party services ; Unstructured Data Storage Function (UDSF) ; Network Exposure Function (NEF) ; Network Repository Function (NRF) ; Network Slice Specific Authentication and Authorization Function (NSSAAF) ; Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF) ; Policy Control Function (PCF) ; Session Management Function (SMF) ; Unified Data Management (UDM) ; Unified Data Repository (UDR) ; User Plane Function (UPF) ; UE radio Capability Management Function (UCMF) ; Application Function (AF) ; User Equipment (UE) ; (Radio) Access Network ((R)AN) ; 5G-Equipment Identity Register (5G-EIR) ; Network Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) ; CHarging Function (CHF).

Conclusion

While change is only constant in transformation & there are alternatives to keep the ball rolling for operators, above points if adopted position operators in best possible way for taking advantage of 5G & forward looking into realizing 6G, 7G & so on…

Disclaimer: The post above expresses my sole viewpoint and not the opinion of any organization I work with presently or in the past.

5G Buzz: What does "5G launch" mean in 2021 & whats the "Truly 5G" target

2021-02-05T13:52:00.001+05:30

In the last 1–2 yrs there has been a lot of buzz around 5G with many operators announcing launch of 5G in many countries globally while some declaring that they are 5G ready where spectrum allocation is pending. Now, while this all sounds very exciting, the question that really arises is that in start of 2021 what service are Telco providers offering & whats the bigger picture — “Truly 5G” [I have taken liberty of using the word “Truly 5G” here for describing state of network that has been optimized to realize maximum benefits of what 5G can offer. (See below for some of its key aspects) ]

The 5G Network ready today in 2021 by most operators is a version of “Truly 5G” which is capable of providing Mobile Broadband for public to use & officially “launching 5G” (from marketing perspective).

For a normal Cell Phone user “5G” is a mere new hot trend that is cool to have and promising to deliver higher data speeds & lower latency. However, for all practical purposes, 4G had already met most of the mobile broadband user needs from day to day usage perspective & 5G is more of a luxury for this scenario.

5G was introduced to handle growing data traffic not only from users consumption of triple play services (voice, video & internet) but also from “connected devices” which make up “Internet of Things(IoT)”. With 4G having taken care of users connectivity, 5G’s major promise lies with offerings around “connected devices” which is ultimately what the operators need to target. Additionally “connected devices” vastly expands the scope of services that operators can offer & sources of revenue for them.

Bigger Picture: Below are some of the key aspects a “Truly 5G” network would involve from a Communication Service Provider(CSP) perspective:

5G network architecture implemented in the data centers along with 5G RAN (preferably ORAN based solution) in the cell sites and
Majorly cloud native infrastructure running most workloads as Container Network Functions while some as Virtual Network Functions.
Having cloud orchestration platform/solution for faster deployment & lifecycle management of network functions & applications (new & existing) along with closed loop automation capability.
Upgrading of Back-haul by laying more fibers, partnership with other fiber companies and having proper mix of wireless & fiber connectivity between cell sites for maximum coverage of the country to support 5G use cases
Running use cases that connect “every-one” to “every-thing”. The network should be providing services covering all the 3 major use case areas of 5G i.e. Enhanced Mobile Broadband(eMBB), Massive machine-type communications (mMTC) & Ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC).

Some of the areas where use cases for 5G can be identified include but not limited to: Smart Cities, Smart homes, Smart Farms, Asset tracking & logistics, Self Driving Cars, Smart Grids, Remote Patient Monitoring, Industrial Automation,Immersive Experience, etc.

Journey to Truly 5G: Many of the key features mentioned above for Truly 5G would already be available in any Telco network which is “5G Ready” or has “launched 5G” but in varying degrees. This will essentially be the starting point for Telecom operator’s journey to Truly 5G from 5G ready state & the duration will vary vastly based on Telco & their country of operation, readiness of services/use cases, Spectrum availability, local regulations,etc

It is important to realize that while “5G” may have already been launched in some countries or ready to be launched, it’s just tip of the 5G iceberg that is visible today with long way to go before its true potential is seen . Additionally, with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic & need of the hour who knows what surprises 5G may throw along the way.

Disclaimer: The views shared in this article are my own and do not represent the view point of any organization i have been associated with in the past or currently associated with.

Cloud Providers & Telco 5G: AWS, Microsoft & Google

2020-09-08T19:25:00.014+05:30

Cloud Providers & Telco 5G: AWS, Microsoft & Google

In this article will be looking at 5Gs targeted use cases and how cloud providers have got involved to address Telco requirements and help with 5G scenarios.

5G & Use Cases

5G is the fifth generation of mobile networks which is designed using Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Network (SDN) technologies to abstract physical infrastructure in the data centers & virtualized workloads running on top of the infrastructure cloud for network & other applications. 5G also supports network slicing, which enables it to create virtual networks for separate use cases if required.

There are 3 use cases which have been primarily targeted for 5G:

Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) i.e. Mobile Internet provided to consumers, enterprises
Massive machine-type communications (mMTC) i.e. Internet of Things(IoT) solutions for different industries e.g. Smart Cities, Smart homes, Asset tracking & logistics, etc
Ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) - e.g. Self Driving Cars, Smart Grids, Remote Patient Monitoring, Industrial Automation, etc.

While the public cloud has become center of attention for most digital transformation requirements & supporting cloud workloads, it has still not matured enough to handle lot of core network workloads that are run in a Telco operator's data center. As a result of this limitation & also to ensure network traffic meeting the performance metrics & regulatory and security compliance, majority Telco Operators prefer to run their core network workloads on a private cloud setup in their own data centers.

However, the success of hyper-scale cloud providers in other industries and with Enterprise/B2B customers in Telco has made the Telecom industries more open to migrating application workloads/non network workloads to public clouds and utilizing their own network for accessing them.

As eMBB use case involves use of network workloads primarily that are present in the 5G network core, it will continue to be hosted in On Premise/Private cloud for majority operators.However, for the other 2 use cases i.e. mMTC (IoT) & URLLC public cloud can be used for hosting the applications that are implementing the use cases.

Cloud Providers & Telco 5G opportunity

Cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft & Google were quick to identify the above opportunities with 5G where they could leverage their cloud expertise & existing products to meet requirements in the Telco vertical and along the way aid with realization of 5G use cases envisaged by the operators and help monetize them. While, the cloud providers were already involved in Telecom segment with more focus on enterprise offerings, however 5G provides them an opportunity to focus on consumer side of the industry. The cloud providers have modified their existing strategies to cater to this developments in Telecom industry & updated their offerings/solutions to aid the operators in their digital transformation journey, migrating their data centers & associated workloads to the cloud and implementing & monetizing 5G.

The common aspects of the cloud providers Telco game plan include:

Containerized application platform for development of Telco applications to modernize existing applications or build new ones as required.
Application platforms enhanced with latest technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data analytics are offered to enable realization of data intensive & AI related technologies like IoT.
Hosting application workloads in the relevant edge locations and colocating on the carrier mobile network to avoid latency associated with public internet.
Cloud Infrastructure Platform for enabling operators to migrate to cloud.

Apart from above, the cloud providers have also tried to differentiating themselves and provide value add to the customers by partnering with existing network vendors in Telecom sector and deploying their solutions on their respective clouds.

The key aspects of AWS, Microsoft & Google's Telco strategy has been highlighted below.The articles with their telecom strategy has been hyperlinked as well.

AWS

Network vendor partners : Mavenir & Nokia's 5G Core solutions running on AWS; Amdocs Cloud based OSS/BSS on AWS
Products for catering to 5G Use cases : AWS Outposts, Local Zones, Snow Family, IoT Greengrass and AWS Wavelength
Telecom Operator Partnerships:Verizon, Vodafone business, Telefonica(Germany), KDDI & SK Telecom
Target Use cases with 5G offerings: Media and Entertainment, Gaming,smart cars, streaming games, VR, autonomous industrial equipment

Microsoft

Network vendor partners : For Edge Use Case - Arista for routers; Palo Alto Networks for firewalls; VMWare, Nokia and NetFoundry for SD-WAN; and CommScope for radio equipment
Acquisitions: Affirmed Networks for their virtualized Evolved Packet Core (EPC) & IoT platform; Metaswitch for their containerized IP Multimedia Subsystem(IMS) solution.
Products for catering to 5G Use cases : Azure Edge Zones, IoT platform using Affirmed & Metaswitch
Telecom Operator Partnerships: AT&T, Etisalat, NTT, Proximus, Rogers, SK Telecom, Telefonica, Telstra, Century Link and Vodafone Business.Verizon, Vodafone business, KDDI & SK Telecom
Target Use cases with 5G offerings: online gaming, remote meetings and events and smart infrastructure - Smart factories, logistics and operations, and connected health care

Google

Network vendor partners : Amdocs & Netcracker Cloud based OSS/BSS on GCP
Products for catering to 5G Use cases : Anthos for Telecom, Google Cloud’s BigQuery platform. Program name: Global Mobile Edge Cloud strategy
Telecom Operator Partnerships: AT&T, Vodafone, Wind TRE, Altice USA and T-Systems
Target Use cases with 5G offerings: retail, healthcare, and media and entertainment

Fair enough to say that with giant public cloud providers getting involved in 5G & operators being receptive to them, the 5G participants pool has got much bigger and more challenging. Definitely something that I'm excited to see how it plays out specially from perspective of network Cloudification journey of operators,5G use cases implementation as and when they take place; how cloud providers are able to utilize this opportunity to the maximum and address the challenges that are specific to Telecommunication industry.

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available online.The references used are available in the hyperlinks. However some references area available at: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/p/reference-cloud-providers-telco-5g-aws.html

Road to Network Cloudification: Summary Table (WIP)

2020-08-21T11:31:00.019+05:30

Road to Network Cloudification: Summary Table

This post is to summarize in a table the operators covered as part of "Road to Network Cloudification" series so far. In this post we are summarizing the NFV ecosystem of the operators - NFVI/VIM/MANO, Vendors involved and 5G status.

This post is a WIP and will be updated based on any updates in the existing posts of the regions or when new regions post is released as part of this ""Road to Network Cloudification" series.

Hyperlinks have been provided in the table on the region to take to the post of that respective region.

Last Updated:5th May 2021.

Country	Operator	NFVI/VIM	MANO	Vendors part of the initial NFV Journey for 4G,other use cases	5G deployment Vendors	Other Vendors for 5G use cases(if applicable)	Other details
USA	AT&T	Openstack Airship project from Mirantis	ONAP	Ericsson, Tail-F Systems AB, Metaswitch Networks ltd & Affirmed Networks	Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia	Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud	NFV program: Domain 2.0 5G Status: 5G Launched
	Verizon	Red Hat Openstack with Big Switch Networks	In house Opensource MANO	Ericsson, Nokia	Ericsson, Samsung(replaced Nokia), Intel, Wind River, Mavenir.	AWS	5G Status: 5G Launched
	T-Mobile	In house Kubernetes platform "Conducktor"		Cisco,Nokia	Nokia, Cisco & Ericsson		5G Status: 5G Launched
	Dish (New)	AWS + VMWare Telco Cloud		N/A	Mavenir, Altiostar, Fujitsu, Nokia		Greenfield Operator planning to launch 5G
Canada	Bell Canada	In house Kubernetes Platform	ONAP	Cisco,Viptela	Nokia, Ericsson		Network 3.0 Strategy 5G Status: 5G Launched
	Telus Canada	Openstack		Affirmed(Microsoft), Netcracker	Ericsson, Nokia & Samsung		5G Status: 5G Launched
	Rogers Canada	Openstack			Ericsson		5G Status: 5G Launched
India	Airtel	Red Hat Openstack/Openshift	Nokia Cloudband	VMWare, Nokia, Ericsson	Ericsson, Altiostar, Cisco, Nokia		5G Status: Pending. Expected 2021 5G Trials with Ericsson and Nokia in 2021
	Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL)	Red Hat Openstack/Openshift	Ericsson & Nokia VNFM, Red Hat Ansible Automation platform	N/A	Ericsson, Mavenir, Nokia	Cisco	5G Status: Pending. Expected 2021 5G Trials with Ericsson and Nokia in 2021
	Reliance Jio(RJIO)	Customized Mirantis Openstack; Own SDN controller using ONOS & OpenDaylight	In house MANO Solution based on ONAP	Samsung, Mavenir, Nokia, Oracle, Ciena	In house 5G solution		5G Status: Pending. Expected 2021 5G Trials with Samsung, Ericsson, Nokia & In house products.
UK	Vodafone UK	VMWare vCloud NFV virtual infrastructure management platform - Openstack & Kubernetes along with Juniper Networks, Mirantis & Nuage Networks.	VNFM from Nokia, Ericsson	Ericsson, Mavenir	Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Mavenir	MediaTek, OPPO, Qualcomm,	5G Status: 5G Launched
	O2 (Telefonica) UK	UNICA platform running on Openstack.Fusion Network - Telefonica's Cloud enabled network built using Juniper Networks		Ericsson	Nokia, Ericsson, Mavenir	DenseAir, WaveMobile	5G Status: 5G Launched
	EE Limited (BT)	Canonical Openstack; Juniper		Huawei	Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei		5G Status: 5G Launched
	Three UK	Red Hat Openstack; Nokia Nuage SDN		Nokia, Samsung	Nokia, Samsung, Huawei, Affirmed Network, Mavenir	Exfo, Mycom, BMC	5G Status: 5G Launched
Europe	Deutsche Telekom (DT)	Openstack based NFVI with help of Common NFVI Telco Taskforce			Vmware, Mavenir(Czech Republic, Slovakia & lab trial Germany), Ericsson (Croatia, Germany),	Collaboration with Nokia and Qualcomm to validate end-to-end network slicing based on a multi-vendor platform using integrated Standalone 5G New Radio and 5G Core.)	5G Status: 5G Launched Poland in 2018 Austria in March 2019 Hungary in April 2020 Germany in June 2020
	Telefonica	UNICA platform running on Openstack using Ericsson's Data Center & Cloud SDN. Wind River's Titanium cloud also VIM for NFV Workloads on UNICA	Ericsson Cloud Manager & VNFM	Huawei(Germany & Spain) Mavenir (Germany) Oracle(Spain), Nokia(Spain)	Nokia, Huawei, Ericsson, AWS(Germany for 5G Core along with Ericsson), Juniper(Spain for 5G backhaul)		5G Status: Germany:Will go live on 3rd October. 5G turned on in Spain but commercially expected Oct/Nov 2020
	Vodafone	VMWare vCloud NFV virtual infrastructure management platform - Openstack & Kubernetes along with Juniper Networks, Mirantis & Nuage Networks.		Mavenir(Germany), Huawei(Italy), Ericsson(Netherlands, Spain, Czech Republic)	Ericsson(Germany, Netherland, Portugal, Spain, Ireland,Romania), Nokia(Italy), Huawei(Spain, Italy,Romania, Germnay)	Affirmed (M2M in Germany & Spain)	5G Status: Launched in Spain in June 2019 Italy in June 2019 Romania in June 2019 Germany in July 2019 Ireland in August 2019 Netherlands in April 2020
	Orange	Red Hat Openstack, Juniper Network's Contrail solution for the SDN controller and hardware from HPE & Dell Networking	ONAP(Poland)	Nokia	Nokia, Ericssson(Romania, Poland,Spain), ZTE (Spain), Huawei(Spain)	Amdocs(Spain)	5G Status: Launched in Romania in Nov 2019
	Telenor	Red Hat Openstack/KVM with Red Hat Linux		Ericsson, Nokia, Huwaei	Nokia & Ericsson (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway)	Affirmed(Finland)	5G Status: Launched in Norway only so far in March 2020.
	Telecom Italia	Red Hat Openstack		Ericsson	Ericsson		5G Status: Launched in July 2019
	Swisscom	Openstack based Ericsson Data Center & Cloud SDN	Ericsson Cloud Manager & VNFM	Ericsson	Ericsson	HPE's Openstack based NFV cloud for TV and Media Services	5G Status: Launched in April 2019. By Dec 2019, 90% 5G coverage.
Singapore	Singtel	VMWare Telco Cloud		Ericsson	Ericsson		5G Status: Launch in 2021 in NSA directly
	Starhub	Red Hat Openstack & SDN Controller from Cisco & Huawei		Nokia	Starhub-M1 JV for 5G Nokia		5G Status: Trial Aug2020-Feb 2021 for NSA implementation directly
	M1	VMWare, Paolo Alto & Huawei collab for nextgen SDN		Huawei, Nokia	Starhub-M1 JV for 5G Nokia		5G Status: Launch in 2021 in NSA directly
South Korea	SK Telecom	TACO (SK Telecom All Container OpenStack) using Openstack's Airship project along with Openstack Helm	T-MANO (In house)	Nokia	Samsung, Ericssson, Nokia	Samsung(IOT), Microsoft(Gaming), AWS (Edge cloud)	5G Status: 5G Launched in April 2019
	LG UPlus	Openstack & KVM based Wind River Titanium Cloud network virtualization platform			Affirmed Networks, Ericsson	Juniper	5G Status: 5G Launched in April 2019
	Korea Telecom	Red Hat Openstack & Opendaylight based infra		Ericsson, Nokia	Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia, Cisco		5G Status: 5G Launched in April 2019
Japan	Rakuten Mobile (New)	In house Cloud Native infrastructure			Nokia, Altiostar, Cisco, Mavenir, Airspan and NEC	Intel, Qualcomm, Sercomm(Small Cells)	Greenfield Operator planning to launch 4G and 5G
	NTT docomo	Openstack based Ericsson Data Center		Nokia, NEC & Fujitsu	Ericsson, Nokia, NEC & Fujitsu
	au by KDDI	Openstack & KVM based Wind River Titanium Cloud network virtualization platform		Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco	Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco
	Softbank (formerly Vodafone)	Openstack based Ericsson Data Center & Cloud SDN		Ericsson	Ericsson, Nokia	Affirmed(Microsoft)
Australia	Telstra	Ericsson's Telco Cloud - Openstack NFVI and SDN offering		Ericsson	Ericsson		5G Status: 5G launched in May 2019
	Vodafone (VHA)	Ericsson Data Center with Cisco SDN		Ericsson, Cisco	Ericsson, Cisco, Nokida		5G Status: 5G launched in March 2020
	Optus				Ericsson		5G Status: 5G launched in November 2019
New Zealand	Vodafone			Nokia	Nokia
	Spark			Cisco, Metaswitch(Microsoft)	Nokia, Samsung, Huawei, Ericsson, Cisco
	2Degrees			Affirmed(Microsoft), Metaswitch(Microsoft)

Road To Network Cloudification: Australia & New Zealand

2020-08-13T19:33:00.006+05:30

Road to Network Cloudification: Australia & New Zealand

Continuing the "Road to Network Cloudification" series where our focus is on summarizing the virtualization journey so far, status & 5G related news of some of the major Operators in the region being discussed.

In the earlier articles we have looked at US,Canada, India, UK , Rest of Europe, Singapore, South Korea & Japan. In this post we will be looking into some of the major operators for Australia & New Zealand. The hyperlinks above will take to the post of the respective regions.

Note: As of 21st August, 2020 have started a new post with summary table capturing all regions, the operators from these post and their NFV ecosystem and 5G status.

URL: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/2020/08/road-to-network-cloudification-summary-table.html

Last Updated:13th August 2020.

Australia

1. Telstra :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Telstra's NFV journey kicked off around 2015 time frame and in Feb 2016 they selected Ericsson's Telco Cloud in full stack which included their NFV and SDN offering. The Telco cloud solution involved Openstack based virtualization layer and virtualized EPC & IMS as well.
In Feb 2017, Telstra decided to extend use of Ericsson's Cloud from Network functions to include broadcast media workload.
In 2020, Telstra deployed Ericsson's cloud native and container based Evolved Packet Core for 4G and 5G services on Ericsson's Openstack based NFVI.

5G News:

Telstra launched 5G in Australia in May 2019 and more than 47 cities had 5G coverage by May 2020.

2. Optus:

Virtualization Journey/Status/5G News:

Like other Australian operators, Optus started discussing about NFV, SDN in 2014 time frame
In Feb 2019, Optus confirmed that there multi vendor strategy for 5G did not include Huawei and launched 5G in November 2019 with Ericsson 5G RAN products.
Also in 2020, Optus launched SDN Automation Platform: 'Liquid Infrastructure' for enterprise customers.

3. Vodafone Australia(VHA):

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Vodafone Australia started its vision of Network of the Future in 2014, involving NFV and SDN by selecting Ericsson to deliver new core network for future services like 4G LTE and Voice Over LTE (VoLTE).
Further in 2017, Vodafone Hutchinson Australia finalized Ericsson & Cisco to transform and virtualize their core & IP network. The deal was the first major collaboration between Ericsson and Cisco on Telecom Cloud infrastructure.
The key components of the deal included: Ericsson Cloud Execution Environment, Ericsson Cloud Manager, Cloud SDN controller; together with Cisco WAN Automation Engine, Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO), Cisco IP Network VNFs including IOS XR 9000v and Cloud Services Router 1000v, and both virtualized and physical security technologies such as the Adaptive Security Appliance and Cisco Firepower security gateway, along with services and support.

5G News:

Unlike the Vodafone Group decision to select VMware Telco Cloud for 5G, VHA decided to chart its own strategy for 5G in 2019.
In Dec 2019, VHA selected Nokia as part of its 5G strategy for the radio access network (RAN), IP/Optical, Microwave, deployment and managed services.
In March 2020, VHA turned on first 5G site in Australia.

New Zealand

Vodafone/2Degree/Spark :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Vodafone New Zealand's network transformation to cloud kicked off in 2014-15 time frame, with Vodafone selecting Nokia networks and their cloud based IMS network for VoLTE call offering.
2 degrees as part of their virtualization effort In 2016, selected Metaswitch's(now Microsoft)coloud native vIMS solution for the VoLTE offering and later extended it along with Affirmed's EPDG for VoWifi Offering in 2018.
New Zealand's 3rd operator Spark started discussing NFV SDN in 2015 and even did a POC with Metaswitch for VoLTE. In addition in 2015, Spark selected Cisco's Packet Core and along with Metaswitch provided virtualized VoLTE offering.
In 2017, Spark signed Ericsson for their vIMS offering to support VoLTE & VoWifi in the future.

5G News:

Vodafone New Zealand has already launched commercial 5G in December 2019 as it has acquired licenses from before. The 5G network was deployed using Nokia's 5G cloud native solution.
Spark after getting license from government launched commercial 5G in July 2020 in 1 city with plans to launch in 4 more before year end.As part of 5G network Nokia, Samsung and Huawei RAN was used while Ericsson & Cisco for Network Core.
Unlike Vodafone & Spark, 2Degree has just started working on 5G in June 2020 when they confirmed that they are starting to build 5G network after government decision to allocate early access 3.5GHz spectrum to the company.

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available online.The references used are available in the hyperlinks for Most of Australia & New Zealand. However some references area available at: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/p/references-road-to-network_13.html

Road To Network Cloudification: Singapore, South Korea & Japan

2020-08-05T16:35:00.006+05:30

Road to Network Cloudification: Singapore, South Korea & Japan

In this post we will be looking into operators of Singapore, South Korea & Japan. So far in the series we have already looked at US,Canada, India, UK & Rest of Europe.

This is the 5th post part of the "Road to Network Cloudification" series where the focus is on summarizing the virtualization journey so far, status & 5G related news of some of the major Operators in the region being discussed.

Note: As of 21st August, 2020 have started a new post with summary table capturing all regions, the operators from these post and their NFV ecosystem and 5G status.

URL: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/2020/08/road-to-network-cloudification-summary-table.html

Last Updated: 20th August 2020.

1. Singapore: Singtel, M1 & Starhub

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Singtel, M1 & Starhub started planning their NFV strategies around 2015/16 time frame with more focus towards SDN & Enterprise offerings.
M1 collaborated with VMware, Palo Alto Networks and Huawei to deploy a next-generation SDN technology proof of concept for its cloud-based data center in 2015.
Similarly Starhub started transforming its existing core and access networks to open, cloud-based networks using software-defined networking (SDN) from Cisco & Huawei in 2015 with 2yrs time frame for completion.
Singtel in 2016 launched software based router & firewall service based on NFV technology for enterprise customers in APAC region.
Consequently, in 2017 M1 launched Singapore’s first virtual Enhanced Packet Core (vEPC) solution using Huawei virtualized offerings.
Also in 2017/18 Starhub decided to implement Red Hat Openstack for its infrastructure.
Singtel in turn implemented VMWare's 5G ready NFV Telco Cloud to support its existing traffic and future 5G.

5G News:

In order to easily implement 5G, Starhub & M1 decided in Jan 2020 to jointly bid for the 5G licenses.
In May 2020, Singapore decided to deploy 5G directly as Standalone mode with full Singapore coverage by 2025.
Singtel decided to use Ericsson solution for 5G deployment while M1& Starhub finalized on Nokia's 5G solution.
The main 5G licenses were awarded to Singtel & M1/Starhub alliance while TPG Telecom Pte Ltd. is being allocated the remaining frequency spectrum in the millimeter wave band to roll out localized 5G networks.
Starhub announced in August that they will be starting 6 month trial(August2020-Feb 2021) in the country with its customers getting early access to 5G network.

2. South Korea: SK Telecom, Korea Telecom(KT) & LG U+

Virtualization Journey/Status:

The South Korean Telco operators got into the virtualization game pretty early with SK Telecom starting POCs around 2013 while KT & LG U+ working on their Virtualization or 5G plan since 2014.
All the operators have built their Telco cloud based on Openstack. SK Telecom built a platform TACO (SK Telecom All Container OpenStack) using Openstack's Airship project along with Openstack Helm. LG U+ selected Wind River Titanium Cloud network virtualization platform which leverages Openstack & KVM. KT partnered with AT&T in 2017 for utilizing their expertise with NFV and SDN for their 5G deployment. KT utilized OpenDaylight to deploy SDN WAN and Red Hat Openstack for their NFV Infra.
In 2015, SK Telecom selected Samsung as sole vendor for NFV deployment for its dedicated IOT network.
Also, in 2015, LG U+ selected Affirmed Networks (now Microsoft) for virtualization of their Mobile network for 5G & IOT.
SK telecom along with Nokia implemented world's first Cloud RAN solution/ SDRAN (Software Defined RAN) solution in a commercial network.
SK Telecom built an in house MANO solution called T-MANO and planned to make T-MANO's API publicly available.
LG U+ rolled out NFV based routing solution for its 5G network using Juniper's virtual route reflector capability within vMX and EX4300/EX2200 Ethernet Switches.
Korea Telecom started 5G tests in 2017 using Ericsson's vRAN & with even AT&T for NFV/SDN related tests & Verizon for live hologram call use case. In 2019 KT started 5G NFV trials with Nokia.

5G News:

SK Telecom partnered with Bharti Airtel(India) to jointly work for 5G, NFV, SDN and IoT. Both organizations will work on the standards and enabling ecosystem for introduction of these technologies from Indian perspective.
SK Telecom selected Samsung, Ericsson & Nokia for 5G rollout and later turned on its 5G network in April 2019 using Ericsson's Cloud packet core.
SK telecom has partnered with Microsoft for joint 5G-based cloud gaming solution.
Also, SK telecom teamed up with AWS for world's first 5G Edge Cloud to run 5G MEC services.
LG U+ selected Ericsson's Cloud packet core and RAN solution for 5G deployment in 2019.
KT deployed 5G using RAN from Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia and 5G Core from Samsung and Cisco.
All South Korean operators had turned on full 5G commercial services in the country in April 2019 with initial limited activation of services in Dec 2018.
SK Telecom appears to be leading the race as they have also decided to collaborate with Nokia, Ericsson & Samsung for joint research and development in advanced 5G and “6G” mobile network technologies.

3. Japan: NTT Docomo, au by KDDI, Softbank & Rakuten

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Existing Operators in Japan -NTT Docomo and KDDI began their NFV strategy in 2014/2015 with NTT Docomo starting their NFV feasibility in 2014 and conducting trials in 2015 while KDDI also conducted PoC in 2014 with Wind River using their Openstack based Titanium Server.
NTT Docomo for their NFV Trial selected Ericsson, Fujitsu and NEC.
In March 2016, NTT had rolled out world's first multi vendor ETSI NFV commercial system using Ericsson's Openstack based VIM and VNFs from Nokia, NEC & Fujitsu. By 2018, Docomo confirmed that their Capex was down 10% because of NFV adoption with 25% of commercial nodes virtualized.
Also, in 2016, Docomo partnered with Ericsson & Intel to build a 5G trial environment in central Tokyo.
Softbank implemented their cloud transformation project in 2015/16 time frame using Ericsson's Openstack based Cloud Execution Environment and Cloud Manager for Orchestration. As part of the transformation Ericsson's vMME was also deployed.
Also, Softbank partnered with Affirmed networks to deliver IoT services and mobile connectivity to Enterprise customers.
Rakuten is a new entrant in Japan market moving from eCommerce earlier into Telecom now. As a greenfield operator Rakuten is building world's first End to end cloud native mobile network for 4G and 5G.
Rakuten has partnered with firms such as Nokia, Altiostar, Cisco, Mavenir, Intel, Qualcomm, Airspan and NEC for setting up the 5G solution. In April 2020, Rakuten has launched 4G services in Japan.

5G News:

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available online.The references used are available in the hyperlinks for Japan while for Singapore and South Korea on https://matelecom.blogspot.com/p/references-road-to-network_7.html

Road to Network Cloudification: Telco Cloud & NFV Reference Architecture for Telco Cloud - Red Hat, VMWare, Mirantis, UNICA & ECOMP

2020-06-26T19:17:00.018+05:30

This post is continuation of the "Road to Network Cloudification" series where we have been looking at the virtualization journey so far, status & 5G related news of some of the major Operators in the region being discussed.

After looking at US,Canada, India, UK & Rest of Europe, I came across documents of NFV Reference Architectures and it only made sense to share them as well so that anyone interested in understanding the journey can get a feel & flavor of what the operators are deploying in their attempts to virtualize / cloudify their network.

Last Updated:20th July 2020.

Before we look at Reference architecture lets quickly look at what Telco Cloud is:

TELCO CLOUD:

Telco Cloud is basically a Cloud Computing Infrastructure (on Premise or Private or Public or hybrid) which is being used as foundation for Telecom data centers as well as to support Telecom network use cases and telecom technologies.

I also came across some good explanation of Telco Cloud online and sharing them here:

1. https://www.vmware.com/topics/glossary/content/telco-cloud

2. https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/service-provider/telco-cloud.html#~what-is-telco-cloud

3. https://www.juniper.net/uk/en/solutions/nfv/telco-cloud/

NFV REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE FOR TELCO CLOUD:

Majority of the solutions used to deploy NFV Telco Cloud in US, Canada, Europe , UK & India have been covered here: Red Hat, VMware vCloud, Mirantis Cloud Platform, UNICA & ECOMP.

These reference architecture can help put a picture around the developments taking place that are highlighted in the other articles.

RED HAT:

Red Hat NFV product mapping against the ETSI NFV architecture is seen below. More details related to Networking, Storage, High Availability, Performance & Optimization, Mobile Applications,Security, etc can be reviewed in the document: Red Hat reference architecture

VMware vCloud NFV:

VMware vCloud NFV product mapping against the ETSI NFV architecture is seen below. More details related to the components & their interworking, Multi tenancy, High Availability, Mobile Applications, Deployment options etc can be reviewed in the document: vCloud NFV reference architecture

Mirantis Cloud Platform:

Mirantis Cloud Platform solution view against the ETSI NFV architecture is seen below. The data sheet for MCP Cloud can be reviewed in the document: MCP DataSheet. Further details of Mirantis offering for NFV can be checked out at : https://www.mirantis.com/solutions/network-functions-virtualization-nfv/ .

UNICA:

UNICA is Telefonica's Network Virtualization/ Telco cloud program based on ETSI NFV and included SDN & infrastructure management components. The Infrastructure architecture is seen below. More details on the program are available in the whitepaper released for UNICA

ECOMP:

Lastly, ECOMP i.e. Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management & Policy is platform part of AT&T's Domain 2.0 initiative. ECOMP's Platform decomposition & mapping against ETSI NFV is seen below. More details on the program are available in the whitepaper released for ECOMP.

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available publically online and relevant links have been hyperlinked in the post above.

Network Transformation: TM Forum's Open API & Open Digital Architecture (ODA)

2020-06-24T21:28:00.003+05:30

Network Transformation: TM Forum's Open API & Open Digital Architecture (ODA)

Majority global operators have been on the journey towards network transformation / cloudification for only 4-5 yrs now and due to challenges and complexities involved with network virtualization and cloudification, relatively very less progress has been made. However the speed of transformation has caught pace globally in the last 2 yrs as most operators plan for implementing 5G in their networks.

In order to ease the transition , many open source projects and industry associations have got created over the years with goal of easing virtualization journey for vendors & operators. One such industry association who has been leading the efforts for Digital Business Transformation has been TM Forum. 2 initiatives of TM Forum to ease network transformation include OpenAPIs & Open Digital Architecture(ODA).

OpenAPIs:

The OpenAPIs initiative started in 2016 and involved collaboratively developing Rest APIs that can be used for scenarios to enabling service providers to transform their IT systems, improve operational agility and focussed at customer centricity, while externally delivering a practical approach to seamless end-to-end management of complex digital services. More than 50 OpenAPIs have been created and full list can be viewed at URL.

The APIs are in use by more than 7,000 software developers in over 1,200 companies worldwide. T Some of the companies using the Open APIs include AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Axiata, Bharti Airtel, BT, China Mobile, China Unicom, Ericsson, Nokia, Globe, Huawei, IBM, MyRepublic, NTT-Group, Oracle, Orange, Telefonica, Telstra and Vodafone. Full List of signatories to the OpenAPI can be viewed here.

Open Digital Architecture:

In 2018, TM Forum launched Open Digital Architecture(ODA). ODA is a blueprint for modular, cloud-based and open digital platforms that can be orchestrated using AI.

Open Digital Architecture aims to create a market for innovative, standardized and interoperable software components by:

Replacing traditional operational and business support systems (OSS/BSS) systems with cloud-native software components.

Replacing traditional IT architectures with the Open Digital Architecture’s standardized plug-and-play components, data model and Open APIs.

The key principles of the Open Digital Architecture are outlined in the whitepaper from TM Forum.

As of June 2020, 30 companies have signed up for the Open API & ODA manifesto which includes: Amdocs, Netcracker Technologies, Nokia, Oracle Communications, BT, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Telenor, Vodafone,Orange & Axiata.

With increasing traction of Cloud native network components, need for Open systems & improving Digital Experience for Customers Open API & Open Digital Architecture are definitely looking very promising.

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available online on tmforum website. Some of the Links have been embedded as URLs in the above post.

Road to Network Cloudification: Europe

2020-06-22T20:25:00.024+05:30

Road to Network Cloudification: Europe

This is the 4th post part of the "Road to Network Cloudification" series where our focus is on summarizing the virtualization journey so far, status & 5G related news of some of the major Operators in the region being discussed.

In the earlier articles we have looked at US,Canada, India & UK. The hyperlinks will take to the post of the respective regions.

In this post we will be looking into some of the major operators for rest of the Europe Region.

Note: As of 21st August, 2020 have started a new post with summary table capturing all regions, the operators from these post and their NFV ecosystem and 5G status.

URL: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/2020/08/road-to-network-cloudification-summary-table.html

Last Updated: 4th January 2022.

Rest Of Europe

1. Deutsche Telekom (DT): Companies part of this group -T-Mobile, Telekom

Virtualization Journey/Status:

In 2016, DT group decided to build a modular Pan European Network (PAN-NET) on which services can be offered to all countries as building blocks/modules. This PAN-NET was not exactly DT's virtualization attempt however it was a start towards that direction.
PAN-NET allowed DT’s subsidiaries to pick individual services that suit their local needs and the parent ability to offer new services throughout Europe “within just a few days”.
In 2019, DT decided to build a cloud native 5G Core that will support all its European markets. Beyond 2020, DT aims to have standalone 5G core built using kubernetes with the edge sites running as Kubelets.
For the 5G Core DT will be using Open source technologies and is working with Common NFVI Telco Taskforce to decide the infrastructure which would typically be Openstack based.
In Feb 2020, DT announced partnership with VMWare & Intel on an open and intelligent virtual RAN (vRAN) platform, based on O-RAN standards for supporting 4G & future 5G traffic.
Also in Feb 2020, T-Mobile CZ and Slovak Telekom Selected Mavenir for Their Next-Generation NFV-Based Harmonized IMS
In June 2020 Mavenir announced that it had completed RCS interconnection with the networks of Telefónica(3 markets), Vodafone(13 markets) and Deutsche Telekom Germany.
Also,Mavenir confirmed in June 2020 that it has successfully tested with DT its standalone 5G Core.
Hrvatski Telekom Croatia selected Ericsson as sole 5G RAN supplier in June 2020 which is the first 5G deal in Croatia.

5G News:

DT, Telefonica, Vodafone agreed in Nov 2019 to share 6K new cell sites in Germany. In May 2020,Vodafone & DT started discussions for a new 5G network-sharing agreement.
In Feb 2020, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Nokia and Qualcomm collaborated to validate end-to-end network slicing from device to core based on a multi-vendor platform using integrated Standalone 5G New Radio and 5G Core.
In July 2020, DT selected Ericsson for 5G RAN in Germany.
5G has been launched by DT in below countries:

Poland in 2018
Austria in March 2019
Hungary in April 2020
Germany in June 2020

As of June 2021, DT has switched on ORAN-Town in Neubrandenburg. ORAN town is DT's multi vendor ORAN network that will provide 4G & 5G Services to 25 sites. The ORAN town is built using equipment from vendor partners Dell, Fujitsu, Intel, Mavenir, NEC and Supermicro. In the setup NEC is providing the radio units, while Mavenir is taking care of the container-based centralized unit and distributed units of the disaggregated RAN as a software.
The setup is built on Intel FlexRAN software architecture with - The remote radio units (O-RU) are provided by Fujitsu and NEC; Mavenir provides the Cloud-Native baseband software for the 4G and 5G distributed units (O-DU) and central units (O-CU), including for the mMIMO radio units; standard server hardware provided by Dell and Supermicro.

2. Telefonica Group: Companies part of this group - Movistar, O2

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Telefonica launched its NFV program called "UNICA" in 2015 which was to be applicable for all its locations.
As part of the UNICA Program Telefonica initially selected HP OpenNFV platform stack with carrier grade HP Helion OpenStack technology but later decided to change the Infrastructure partner to Ericsson.As part of the project Ericsson was tasked to supply the new Hyperscale Datacenter System 8000, Ericsson Cloud Manager, OpenStack based Cloud Execution Environment, Cloud SDN and automation required for the project.
In 2019, Telefonica added Wind River's Titanium cloud virtualization platform as a virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) for NFV workloads in UNICA.
On the VNFs front, Telefonica selected Huawei in 2017 to deploy virtual EPC in Germany and Spain along with 11 countries in Latin America.Along with Huawei, Telefonica Deutschland selected Mavenir's virtualized IMS solution.
Telefonica Spain along with Huawei, added Oracle's Virtualized SBC & Nokia’s SDN, NFV and core routing capabilities to transform the IP core network.
In June 2020 Mavenir announced that it had completed RCS interconnection with the networks of Telefónica(3 markets), Vodafone(13 markets) and Deutsche Telekom Germany

5G News:

DT, Telefonica, Vodafone agreed in Nov 2019 to share 6K new cell sites in Germany.
In 2020, Telefonica selected Nokia & Huawei for 5G RAN in Germany with Ericsson building its 5G core network on it for private & business customers.
Further in September 2020, Telefonica Germany added AWS for virtualizing its 5G Core. Ericsson will be providing 5G core and orchestration components while all the data will remain exclusively on AWS servers in Germany to ensure cloud security and to comply with data protection laws.
In Spain, Telefonica selected Huawei to build its 5G core network. Also for 2 cities of Spain Nokia & Ericsson were selected to deploy the 5G RAN.
O2 Czech Republic launched 5G in 1 city in June 2019 and further started expansion in June 2020 using 5G network of Ericsson. Also Nokia & Huawei 5G networks are being used in 5G Trial.
Telefonica turned on 5G site in Spain in September 2020 but commercial users are expected in Oct/Nov2020 .
5G is expected to go live in Germany on 8th October.
Telefonica added Juniper's vSRX & cSRX firewalls for its 5G back-haul setup.
In September 2021, Telefonica announced creation of its first ever cloud-native, 5G Core Network Platform UNICA Next using IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation, Red Hat OpenShift, and Juniper Networks Apstra and QFX technology aligned to deliver streamlined end-to-end orchestration and operations. UNICA Next data centers are planned to be deployed starting in October 2021 and its scalable architecture is designed to address ETSI and other relevant industry standards.

3. Vodafone :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Vodafone operators in different European cities started deploying Virtualization in their setups around 2015.
In 2015, Vodafone Germany launched virtualized VoLTE along with Mavenir while Vodafone Italy deployed with Huawei.
Vodafone Netherlands, Vodafone Spain, Vodafone Czech Republic deployed virtualized VoLTE solution in 2016 using Ericsson's solution.
In 2016, Vodafone group selected Affirmed's vEPC for M2M in Germany & Spain.
In September 2017, Vodafone group partnered with VMware to setup its vCloud NFV virtual infrastructure management platform including the vSphere server virtualization system and NSX management and security suite in its European countries.
Vodafone updated its strategy in April 2019 to expand from only NFV SDN to establishing Telco Cloud strategy based where vCloud NFV supports Openstack infrastructure as well as Kubernetes. VMware was again tasked with this cloud deployment along with Juniper Networks, Mirantis, and Nuage Networks.
By April 2020. the VMWare vCloud NFV was deployed across 21 of Vodafone's markets and all of its European businesses.
Ericsson 5G cloud packet core was selected for 5G deployments in Germany, Netherlands, Portugal & Spain. In Vodafone Italy, 5G cloud packet core from Nokia was selected.
In June 2020 Mavenir announced that it had completed RCS interconnection with the networks of Telefónica(3 markets), Vodafone(13 markets) and Deutsche Telekom Germany

5G News:

In order to expedite deployment of 5G network sharing agreements have been made in number of countries to share the towers/RAN etc in specific areas of the countries. Some of the agreements are:

Vodafone, Orange signed new mobile and fixed network sharing deal in Spain in April 2019.
Vodafone finalized network sharing partnership with Telecom Italia and agreed to combine Italian towers with INWIT in July 2019.
Vodafone Portugal and NOS announced Feb 2020 that they have signed a Letter of Intent in relation to a potential nationwide partnership for mobile network sharing, thus ensuring increased efficiency and speed on the coverage of the country.
DT, Telefonica, Vodafone agreed in Nov 2019 to share 6K new cell sites in Germany. In May 2020,Vodafone started discussions with DT for new 5G network-sharing talks.

5G has been launched by Vodafone group in below countries:

Spain in June 2019 using 5G Network from Ericsson & Huawei
Italy in June 2019 using 5G Network from Nokia & Huawei
Romania in June 2019 using 5G network from Ericsson & Huawei
Germany in July 2019 using 5G Network from Ericsson & Huawei in NSA mode followed by Standalone 5G in April 2021 using Ericsson.
Ireland in August 2019 using Ericsson's 5G network
Netherlands in April 2020 using Ericsson's 5G network

4. Orange :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Orange in 2017 decided vendors for its multinational NFV deployment. Orange selected Red Hat Openstack, Juniper Network's Contrail solution for the SDN controller and hardware from HPE & Dell Networking. VNFs would run on this above setup.
Orange group partnered with Nokia in 2017 for 5G Services.
Orange Poland adopted ONAP as MANO solution.

5G News:

In order to expedite deployment of 5G network sharing agreements have been made in number of countries to share the towers/RAN etc in specific areas of the countries. Some of the agreements are:

Vodafone, Orange signed new mobile and fixed network sharing deal in Spain in April 2019.
Orange Belgium and Proximus signed a term sheet today to enter into a mobile access network sharing agreement by the end of the 2019.

5G has been launched by Orange in only Romania so far in November 2019.
Orange selected Nokia & Ericsson for 5G launch in France.
5G Test network launched in Poland with Ericsson.
Orange Slovensko selected Nokia for 5G RAN
In Spain, Orange added ZTE in addition to Ericsson & Huawei for 5G

5. Telenor : Telenor/DNA

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Telenor group started virtualization towards end of 2015 by selecting a multi vendor environment. The environment is made of Red Hat Linux/KVM/Red Hat Openstack as NFVI and VNFs from Ericsson, Nokia & Huawei.
For the 5G core in Denmark, Sweden & Norway, Nokia Cloud Native core offerings & Ericssons 5G Core network offerings were selected to align with the multi vendor strategy.
Telenor Finland (DNA) also selected Affirmed's virtual NSA & SA solutions for its enterprise 5G offerings.

5G News:

In order to expedite deployment of 5G network sharing agreements have been made in number of countries to share the towers/RAN etc in specific areas of the countries. Some of the agreements are:

Finnish telecom operators Telia, Elisa and Telenor-owned DNA decided to share new 5G spectrum in June 2020.
Nokia, Telenor and Telia create the world’s most advanced shared wireless network in Denmark

5G has been launched by Telenor in Norway only so far in March 2020 using Ericsson's 5G Network.
5G testing is currently underway in Finland with Ericsson & Denmark with Nokia by Telenor Group. Sweden 5G launch is expected later in 2020.

6. Telecom Italia(TIM) :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

TIM started considering NFV in 2015 and between 2015-2017 deployed production grade Red Hat Openstack solution in its Data along with VNFs from Ericsson of vEPC, vIMS, optimization of mobile traffic and VoLTE management
In 2018, TIM deployed Ericsson's vRAN solution in Turin which will be used for future 5G support.

5G News:

In order to expedite deployment of 5G network sharing agreements have been made in number of countries to share the towers/RAN etc in specific areas of the countries. Vodafone finalised network sharing partnership with Telecom Italia and agreed to combine italian towers with INWIT in July 2019.
TIM launched 5G in Italy in July 2019 using 5G network & Cloud Core from Ericsson.
In June 2021, TIM announced that they are working on launching first "5G Cloud Network" in Italy, where Ericsson is working with Google Cloud. The project plans to use TIM’s Telco Cloud infrastructure, Google’s Cloud solutions and Ericsson’s 5G Core network and Automation technologies.

7. Swisscom :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Swisscom in 2016 selected Ericsson to transform its core network in Switzerland through the deployment of a telco cloud infrastructure and virtual network functions of its mobile core.
As part of the transformation Ericsson was required to provide a range of solutions, including Ericsson Hyperscale Datacenter System 8000, Cloud Execution Environment (Based on Openstack & OPNFV), Cloud SDN and Cloud Manager. The cloud solutions were chosen with target of being extendable to 5G in future.
For Swisscom's TV and Media Services, HPE's Openstack based NFV cloud developed for running virtualized and containerized TV media functions such as transcoding, streaming, and hosting backend applications.

5G News:

Swisscom launched 5G in April 2019 using 5G network & Cloud Core from Ericsson.By Dec 2019, 90% 5G coverage has been achieved by the operator.
In June 2021, AWS was selected by Swisccomm as their cloud vendor of choice. As part of their digital tranformation they will migrate a wide range of core applications that power its enterprise resource planning, operational support system (OSS), business support system (BSS), analytics, contact center, and communications provisioning workloads.
Also Swiscomm will investigate migration of 5G core & 5G RAN to a hybrid cloud setup involving AWS.

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available online.The references used are available on: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/p/references-road-to-network_22.html

Road to Network Cloudification: UK

2020-06-19T15:40:00.016+05:30

Road to Network Cloudification: UK

This is the 3rd post part of the "Road to Network Cloudification" series where the focus is on summarizing the virtualization journey so far, status & 5G related news of some of the major Operators in the region being discussed.

In the earlier articles we have looked at US,Canada & India. In this post we will be looking into UK Region.

Note: As of 21st August, 2020 have started a new post with summary table capturing all regions, the operators from these post and their NFV ecosystem and 5G status.

URL: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/2020/08/road-to-network-cloudification-summary-table.html

Last Updated: 4th January 2022.

UK

1. Vodafone UK :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

In September 2017, Vodafone group partnered with VMware to setup its vCloud NFV virtual infrastructure management platform including the vSphere server virtualization system and NSX management and security suite in its European countries including UK.
Vodafone updated its strategy in April 2019 to expand from only NFV SDN to establishing Telco Cloud strategy based where vCloud NFV supports Openstack infrastructure as well as Kubernetes. VMware was again tasked with this cloud deployment along with Juniper Networks, Mirantis, and Nuage Networks.
The solution also deployed Ericsson's packet core on the VMware vCloud NFV for supporting 4G/VoLTE & 5G.
By April 2020. the VMWare vCloud NFV was deployed across 21 of Vodafone's markets and all of its European businesses.
In June 2020 Mavenir announced that it had completed RCS interconnection with the networks of Telefónica (3 markets), Vodafone(13 markets) and Deutsche Telekom Germany

5G News:

In July 2019, Vodafone UK became the second mobile operator in the United Kingdom to launch 5G services on a commercial basis and said it will reach eight million consumers with 5G services by 2021.
5G launch by Vodafone UK involved use of Cisco's core network and Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia RAN.
Vodafone UK also partnered with O2 & successfully deployed 5G multi-operator radio access network (MORAN) technology.
Vodafone U.K. switched-on what it claimed was the first live standalone (SA) 5G deployment in the country in July 2020, with a new network built for Coventry University using vendors - Ericsson, MediaTek, OPPO and Qualcomm.
In August 2020, Vodafone went live with Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN) 4G site in the U.K., with help from U.S.-based vendor Mavenir at Royal Welsh Showground in Powys, Wale. The software is 5G compatible but only turned on for 4G at this time.
Vodafone launched a commercial pilot of 5G Standalone service in London, Manchester & Cardiff in June 2021 using Ericsson 5G & focusing on testing new capabilities like network slicing.

2. O2 ( Telefonica UK) :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Telefonica UK's cloud enabled network - Fusion network was built by Juniper Networks and was ready in 2019. O2 intends to use this network for 5G.
O2 also said in Jan 2020 that they will work with Mavenir, DenseAir and WaveMobile to deploy 4G and 5G networks over OpenRAN solutions in dense environments and more isolated rural communities.
In Feb 2020, O2 selected Mavenir's vIMS solution for VoLTE & VoWifi offerings in the country on Telefonica's NFV platform "UNICA" running on Openstack.
The UNICA platform will be supporting container workloads as well for 5G.
In June 2020 Mavenir announced that it had completed RCS interconnection with the networks of Telefónica(3 markets), Vodafone(13 markets) and Deutsche Telekom Germany

5G News:

O2 striked a deal with Vodafone UK for 5G networking sharing in July 2019 to speed up deployment and reduce costs.
By Oct 2019 O2 launched 5G in few cities of UK using Nokia & Ericsson RAN. Also Ericsson's cloud packet core was used in the setup.
In June 2020, O2 signed deal with Ericsson to continue 5G rollout in the country.
O2 additionally signed with Ericsson for 5G SA deployment in the country as well in July 2021.

3. EE Limited (BT Group):

Virtualization Journey/Status:

In June 2019, BT selected Juniper to provide network cloud infrastructure for EE's Telco Cloud, which will support the operator’s converged services with cloud-based virtual network function.
Further, in July 2019 BT selected Canonical's Openstack as the VIM for the Telco Cloud core network.
BT's EE also selected Ericsson's Dual-Mode Cloud 5G Core for their next generation 5G core to help run both virtual machines & containerized workloads.
In Sep 2020, BT signed deal with Nokia for their 5G RAN solution which will make Nokia BT’s largest equipment provider.
Further, in October 2020, BT also selected Ericsson RAN for its 5G Network.

5G News:

EE first tested 5G in their lab in 2017 using Huawei equipment which were available in its setup when BT acquired EE in 2016.
EE was first operator in UK to launch 5G in May 2019 and reached 71 locations by March 2020. EE's 5G launch involved RAN of Nokia & Huawei while core network from Ericsson & Huawei.
In October 2021, EE began rollout of 5G via 700Mhz band by switching on "indoor 5G" at more than 50 sites across UK.

4. Three UK:

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Three UK decided in 2017 to setup its cloud native core network using Nokia's AirFrame data center, IP routing and network management, Nokia CloudBand(TM), Nuage Networks software defined networking, evolved packet core, IMS, TAS, SBC, Shared Data Layer and security solutions.
Affirmed Networks and Mavenir are being used as applications for traffic management and messaging respectively running on the Telco cloud core which is based on Red Hat OpenStack.
Finally, Exfo, Mycom and BMC are being used as Operational Support System solutions for managing the Nokia cloud core and the RAN and IT systems.

5G News:

Three UK started deploying 5G for home broadband users in August 2019 and planned to launch for smart phone consumers by December 2019.
However it was not able to meet 2019 timeline and actually launched in February 2020 using RAN from Huawei, Nokia & Samsung.
They claim to be launching UK's fastest 5G network and in August 2021 won Ookla Speedtest Award for UK's fastest 5G network.

As per news in July 2020, UK is planning to phase out Huawei as part of its 5G networks.

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available online.The references used are available on: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/p/references-road-to-network_19.html

Road to Network Cloudification: India

2020-06-18T20:04:00.028+05:30

Road to Network Cloudification: India

"Road to Network Cloudification" : Series focusing on summarizing the virtualization journey so far, current status & 5G related news of some of the major Operators in a region/country.

In the last article we had looked at US & Canada. In this post we are now looking into India .

Note: As of 21st August, 2020 have started a new post with summary table capturing all regions, the operators from these post and their NFV ecosystem and 5G status.

URL: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/2020/08/road-to-network-cloudification-summary-table.html

Last Updated: 4th Jan 2022.

INDIA

1. Bharti Airtel :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Airtel started virtualizing their network around 2015/16 time frame and by 2016 had completely virtualized its physical networks using VMWARE NSX.
SK Telecom partnered with Bharti Airtel(India) in 2017 to jointly work for 5G, NFV, SDN and IoT. Both organizations will work on the standards and enabling ecosystem for introduction of these technologies from Indian perspective.
In 2019, Airtel selected Ericsson's 5G Ready Cloud Packet Core to boost existing network Performance.
Also, in 2020 Altiostar's open vRAN solution was selected by Airtel for their existing 4G customers & extending same for future 5G use.
In July 2020, Airtel, under its cloudification strategy, selected Nokia’s CloudBand software to power the telco's Voice over LTE (VoLTE) network in India. The solution will also help Airtel to create new revenue opportunities for 5G and internet-connected devices.

5G News:

Airtel has signed deals with Cisco & Nokia for laying 5G infrastructure in India.Cisco will be helping with developing a programmable and software defined platform for mobile traffic growth.Nokia will be deploying 30000 radio units across several spectrum for 5G connectivity which is expected to complete by 2022.
In May2020, Airtel has selected IBM & Red Hat to build 5G Ready Open hybrid Telco Cloud network which would be capable of supporting both network workloads as well as containerized workloads. The hybrid cloud would be combination of Red Hat Openstack & Red Hat Openshift to provide necessary support.
Airtel has joined hands in January with Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson and Nokia for 5G trials in the country.
5G Trials in the country were expected to start in June 2020 for 3 month period . 5G Launch is expected in the country around Mid/End of 2021 time frame.
The vendors for 5G may change if the Indian government decides that Chinese vendors like Huawei & ZTE are not allowed to participate in the 5G trials.
Like Jio, Airtel is also planning to develop in house 5G gear.
Dot approved 5G Trials in May 2021 with Airtel permitted to use Nokia & Ericsson.
In July 2021, Airtel 5G trial network went live in Mumbai & in October Airtel conducted first rural geography test of 5g in outskirts of Delhi/NCR (Gurgaon) using Ericsson RAN & showed 1Gbps download speeds.
Further, Airtel confirmed that it had conducted first 5G trial in 700Mhz band with Nokia in Nov 2021 in outskirts of Kolkata.

2. Vi (Previously known as Vodafone Idea Ltd(VIL):

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Vodafone Idea is a recently formed merged entity in 2018 between Vodafone India & Idea Cellular. As of September 2020, the company got rebranded to Vi . P.S the article is written prior to rebranding.
Before merger, in 2017 Vodafone group had selected VMWare as one of the vendors for NFV Global rollout.
Similarly, before merger Idea Cellular had chosen Nokia's cloud core to run both data and voice traffic and eventually support 5G.
The Merged Entity Vodafone Idea Ltd. started their NFV SDN trials towards end of 2018 and in 2019 decided to use Ericsson's Cloud Packet core offering to support their existing data demands and 5G in future.
Also VIL's IMS VoLTE was deployed using Mavenir's cloud native solution for their 4G & 5G core.
In 2019, VIL decided to setup a universal cloud for Network & IT workloads. VIL partnered with Cisco to build an automated multi cloud network for its retail and enterprise customers.
VIL also selected IBM and Red Hat to build, operate, automate and orchestrate the Network Cloud for both VMs and container traffic and by 2020 the Open Hybrid Universal cloud was live supporting nearly 300 million subscribers in production.
VIL also deployed Open RAN for its 4G offering and in 2020 expanded its RAN pool to include Mavenir's Open RAN as well.
As of 2020, Vi has more than 88 Telco Clouds installed in India as told by CTO Vishant Vora during #ETDigitalTelco Round table and has both Network & IT workloads running on the Cloud

5G News:

In 2020, VIL has signed deal with Ericsson & Nokia for laying 5G infrastructure in India.
Vodafone Idea has also filed its application for 5G trials and the company has partnered Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson and Nokia for the same
5G Trials in the country were expected to start in June 2020 for 3 month period . 5G Launch is expected in the country around Mid/end of 2021 time frame.
The vendors for 5G may change if the Indian government decides that Chinese vendors like Huawei & ZTE are not allowed to participate in the 5G trials.
Dot approved 5G Trials in May 2021, with Vodafone permitted to use Nokia & Ericsson.
In November 2021, Vi conducted 5G Trials in Pune & Gandhinagar clocking 1.5Gbps speeds & also carried out 5G trials in rural area of Gandhinagar using Nokias Airscale radio portfolio and achieved more than 100Mbps.

3. Reliance Jio :

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Reliance Jio started its operations in 2016 as a Greenfield operator and deployed a fully virtualized network.
Jio's all IP network was built using Cisco's SDN offerings and without any circuit switches.
Other vendors who contributed towards setting up of Jio's fully virtual greenfield network included Samsung, Mavenir, Nokia, Oracle & Ciena.
Jio leveraged open source and customized them to suit its need. Jio's virtual functions were deployed on Openstack infrastructure from Mirantis which has inbuilt kubernetes support for containers & built an in house MANO solution using ONAP.
It also built its SDN controller using ONOS & OpenDaylight
In 2018, in order to expedite capability building towards 5G & IoT deployment, Reliance Jio also acquired Radisys.

5G News:

At India Mobile Congress(IMC) 2019 Jio had demoed 4G LTE & 5G use cases along with Samsung.
In Oct 2019, Jio replaced Nokia & Oracle's IMS solution with in house solution.
Reliance Jio had filed its application for 5G trials initially along with Samsung. However in March 2020, they announced that they have developed an in house 5G and IoT solution to remove dependencies on foreign vendors & reduce costs.
5G Trials in the country were expected to start in June 2020 for 3 month period . 5G Launch is expected in the country around Mid/End of 2021 time frame. However Jio had reported in 2018 that they maybe able to launch 5G in the country within 6 months of spectrum auction.
In July 2020 Jio entered 5G space as technology vendor planning to take its 5G in house solution globally to telcos to compete with existing players like Nokia, Ericsson & Huawei.
In May 2021, Dot has approved 5G Trials with Jio finalizing to test with Samsung, Nokia , Ericsson & in house products.
Jio kicked off 5G trials in June 2021. They trialed using made in India in house products in Mumbai, using Ericsson in Delhi, Nokia in Pune and Samsung in Gujarat.

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available online.The references used are available on: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/p/references-road-to-network_18.html

Road to Network Cloudification: USA & Canada

2020-06-17T20:49:00.037+05:30

Road to Network Cloudification: USA & CANADA

"Road to Network Cloudification" : Series focusing on summarizing the virtualization journey so far, current status & 5G related news of some of the major Operators in a region/country.

Will be starting the series with focus on USA & Canada.

Note: As of 21st August, 2020 have started a new post with summary table capturing all regions, the operators from these post and their NFV ecosystem and 5G status.

URL: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/2020/08/road-to-network-cloudification-summary-table.html

Last Updated: 4th Jan 2022

USA:

1. AT&T :

Virtualization Journey:

AT&T has been one of the global leaders who has invested heavily towards virtualizing their infrastructure. Their journey towards network virtualization essentially started in 2013 when it laid out plans of its "Domain 2.0" initiative.
As part of Domain 2.0 AT&T also announced plans of "User Defined Network Cloud" in 2014 which was their network of the future for which it selected Ericsson, Tail-F Systems AB, Metaswitch Networks ltd & Affirmed Networks as the vendors.
Developed in house MANO(Management and Network Orchestration) platform (ECOMP) which was made open source later on and collaborated with many other global operators to cofound "ONAP(Open Network Automation Platform)"

Virtualization Status:

By 2019, around 71% of their core network functions has been virtualized and AT&T Targets to reach 75% by end of 2020.This target was reached in September 2020.
Also currently SDN controls 100% of the data traffic that runs through the infrastructure connecting the elements of the core network together.

5G News:

AT&T revealed in 2018 that Ericsson, Samsung & Nokia are the 5G vendors it will be using.
In 2019, AT&T started deploying 5G using Kubernetes on Openstack's Airship project which is being provided by Mirantis.
AT&T is deploying its Kubernetes and OpenStack cloud on-premises rather than in a public cloud
AT&T also teamed up with Microsoft in 2019 to innovate around 5G, AI, cloud, and edge computing and moving non network worloads to Azure Cloud by 2024.
One of the biggest move made by AT&T was in June 2021 when they decided to move 5G core to Microsoft Azure's hybrid cloud with Microsoft acquiring AT&Ts Network cloud platform running 5G already and integrating azure services to the platform .
AT&T has also partnered with Google cloud in July 2021 for enterprise services

2. Verizon Wireless:

Virtualization Journey:

Verizon officially started its virtualization efforts in 2016 when it released its reference NFV SDN architecture whitepaper.
However technically, its efforts towards virtualization can be considered to have started in 2015 when they launched SDWAN managed services and Virtual Network Services offering later in 2016 for the enterprise segment.
In 2015 Verizon also built their Private Telco Cloud using Red Hat Openstack on Dell Platform and leveraging Big Switch Networks. The Telco cloud was build using all their existing networks - wired & wirelines.
Verizon also confirmed in 2017 that it is using Ericsson Platform to orchestrate services and is looking at open source MANO projects - ONAP & OSM

Virtualization Status/5G News

By end of 2019, Verizon had completed 60% of their networks transformation and virtualization under a common, unified framework.
Like AT&T, Verizon has also started deploying 5G last year(2019) using their Verizon Cloud Platform built on Openstack.
In 2017, Verizon awarded Ericsson 5G Contract for RAN , packet core , transport & associated services.
Verizon had also been working with Nokia & Intel since 2018 to create Virtualized Ran solution for 5G and IOT .
In 2019, Verizon did a POC with Ericsson for cloud native and container based EPC.
Verizon also announced in April 2019 that they are trying to have a fully virtualized standalone 5G network ready in 1-2yrs time frame.
As part of the Verizon Cloud platform the core network from Mavenir is also being utilized .
In Mid 2019, Verizon partnered with Azure to launch joint platform for IoT application development & in end of 2019 Verizon also announced partnership with AWS for offering Mobile Edge Compute solution using Verizon 5G and Amazon’s Wavelength Edge Compute Platform.
In September 2020, Verizon replaced Nokia’s 5G RAN solution and signed a deal with Samsung for their 5G RAN solution in a $6.6B Deal for 5yrs till 2025.
Current RAN partners for Verizon include Samsung, Intel & Wind River. As of Aug 2020, Verizon says it completed a fully-virtualized 5G data session in a live network. This means that the session was conducted on a virtualized core, a virtualized RAN and a virtualized edge.
In July 2021, Verizon signed deal with Ericsson for its 5G Network offering including including Massive MIMO, Ericsson Cloud RAN and software to strengthen and expand Verizon’s world-class 5G network.

3. T-Mobile:

Virtualization Journey & Status:

T-Mobile has not been public about its NFV efforts.
However Sprint which has been acquired by T-Mobile has invested heavily towards virtualization and has been working on OpenStack Cloud since 2017.
Sprint had fully virtualized its Packet core and IMS core as part of its virtualization efforts.
In 2018, T-Mobile announced launch of World's largest virtual Packet Core with Cisco which will help it prepare towards supporting 5G.
In addition for 5G in 2018, T-Mobile signed a deal with Ericsson & Nokia as well for 5G. T-Mobile had selected Ericsson to deploy Ericsson's Radio System portfolio, including 5G New Radio and NR hardware and software compliant with 3GPP standards.
Also, they informed that in standalone 5G trial they have used packet core from Nokia & Cisco.

5G News:

T-Mobile was first operator in US to launched 5G services in beginning of 2019.
T-Mobile has an internal Kubernetes platform "Conducktor"which is already supporting 20000 containers for building applications, automating them and implementing them on scale.This infrastructure could enable adoption of container based workloads which are part of 5G.
As of July 2020, T-Mobile has deactivated Sprint's legacy 5G network to reuse its Spectrum internally to improve its own network.
On August 4, 2020 T-Mobile announced that they had launched standalone 5G network by launching in Lisbon, North Dakota.
T-Mobile worked with Cisco, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, OnePlus and Qualcomm as partners on its path to deploying SA 5G . Nokia and Cisco were the vendors on core network side and Ericsson & Nokia supplying the RAN.

4. Dish Network:

Virtualization Journey/Status/5G News:

Greenfield Operator in process of setting up its network and turning it on to support virtualized 5G network.
Dish intends to build a nationwide, cloud-native, fully virtualized 5G Network riding on open source technology and open RAN standards. In April 2020, Dish named Mavenir as first vendor for cloud native OpenRAN deployment.
Also, as Dish is greenfield operator deploying 5G directly, it intends to deploy 5G Standalone Network directly.
In July, Dish striked a deal with Altiostar and Fujitsu for their Open Ran solutions for 5G solution .
In August 2020, Dish initially finalized on VMware Telco Cloud to deploy their 5G network. Dish called out the software-defined nature of VMware’s cloud as a strong foundation to support Dish’s 5G partner ecosystem. However, in April 2021, Dish decided to use AWS for hosting its RAN and mobile core for both public and private 5G networks with VMWare also being used for select ORAN aspects.
For the 5G core, Dish has selected Nokia in September 2020 with Nokia announcing deployment of standalone 5G Core on AWS in June 2021.
Dish selected IBM's AI powered Automation & network orchestration Software - Cloud Pak For Network Automation (CP4NA) for their 5G Network in September 2021. The product will be performing role of MANO in this setup.

CANADA:

1. Bell Canada:

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Bell Canada kicked off its NFV strategy in 2015 by launching its Network 3.0 Strategy which involved transformation of its network from core to edge.
In 2018, Bell Canada launched Bell Virtual Network Services- a catalogue of cloud-based, on-demand network functions for enterprise business customers under the Network 3.0 umbrella. Cisco Viptela SDWAN is one of the use cases which is being provided as part of this offering
Also in 2018, Bell deployed containerized version of ONAP solution in production along with Amdocs to automate life cycle management of both physical and virtual network functions, incident management and service assurance.
In 2019, Bell Canada informed that they are running Virtual Machines on Kubernetes platform without any openstack platform.

5G News:

In June 2020, Bell launched 5G services in 5cities in Canada using Nokia.
Bell also selected Ericsson for 5G RAN in June 2020.

2. Telus:

Virtualization Journey/Status:

Telus has being deploying NFV from at least 2016 deploying 10 NFV pods on Openstack till 2018.
Telus has also worked with Affirmed Networks (Now Microsoft) to implement NFV for IOT services. They deployed virtualized EPC, IMS and vCPE to realize the same.
Telus has also leveraged Netcracker's Network As a Service offering to deliver SD-WAN and other next-generation services to their customers.

5G News:

In June 2020, Telus selected Ericsson Nokia & Samsung to deploy 5G services.
Also, they launched 5G services in Canada in June 2020.

3. Rogers Canada: Even Rogers Canada has started deploying 5G in canada in Jan 2020. Rogers is deploying 5G in Canada using Ericsson's 5G RAN & Core.

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available online.The references used are available on: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/p/references-road-to-network.html .

Major Telecom Service providers Worldwide

2020-06-15T19:24:00.018+05:30

Major Telecom Service providers Worldwide

As part of this article, I have tried capturing list of the major Telecom Operators Globally. I will be trying to keep track of the latest developments in these regions & in some of thees operators from the perspective of Network Cloudification & 5G Deployments in this blog.

I have captured the Mobile Network operators for some of the major countries below. For the remaining countries in the geographical regions (Americas, Middle East & Africa, Asia, Australia & New Zealand) I have captured the major players generally there instead of against each and every country specifically.

Asia
India	Airtel
	Vodafone Idea
	Reliance Jio
Singapore	Singtel
	Starhub
	M1
South Korea	SK Telecom
	Korea Telecom
	LG UPlus
Thailand	AIS
	TrueMove H
	DTAC
Japan	Rakuten Mobile (New)
	NTT docomo
	au by KDDI
	Softbank (formerly Vodafone)
Malaysia	Maxis
	Digi
	Celcom
Indonesia	Axiata (XL Axiata)
	Ooredoo (Indosat)
	PT Telkomsel
Vietnam	Viettel
	Vinaphone
	MobiFone
	Gtel
Phillipines	Globe Telecom
	SMART
	Dito Telecom
	Now Telecom (New)
China	China Mobile
	China Telecom
	China Unicom
Hong Kong	HKT
Hong Kong	3HongKong
Bangladesh	Grameenphone
	Teletalk
	Robi
	Banglalink
Sri Lanka	Dialog
	Mobitel
	Airtel
	Hutch

Americas
Canada	Rogers
	Telus
	Bell
USA	AT&T
	Verizon
	T-Mobile
	Dish (New)
Mexico	Telcel (America Movil)
	Movistar
	AT&T Mexico
South America & Carribean	Digicel
	Tigo (Millicom)
	Movistar(Formely telefonica america movil)
	Claro
	Cable & Wireless /Flow

Europe
UK	EE Limited (BT)
	O2
	Vodafone
	Three UK
Germany	Telekom
	O2
	Vodafone
Netherlands	T-Mobile
	Vodafone
	KPN
Spain	Movistar
	Orange
	Vodafone
Rest of Europe	Deutsche Telekom
	Telefonica
	T-Mobile
	Vodafone
	Orange
	Telecom Italia
	Swisscom
	Telenor

Middle East & Africa
UAE	Etisalat
UAE	Du
Qatar	Vodafone Qatar
Turkey	Vodafone
Turkey	Turkcell
Other Middle east countries	Batelco
	Zain
	MTN
	Viva
Africa Region	Airtel
	MTN
	Etisalat
	Vodacom/Vodafone
	Orange

Australia & New Zealand
Australia	Telstra
	Optus
	Vodafone (VHA)
New Zealand	Vodafone
	2Degrees
	Spark

Disclaimer: The content below is based on details available online and personal experience. Also data presented is my personal view based on online research and not the view of any organization I am associated with in the past or currently.

Telecom Network Evolution in Last decade (2011-2020): Legacy to Network Cloudification

2020-06-14T19:08:00.101+05:30

Telecom Network Evolution in Last decade (2011-2020): Legacy to Network Cloudification

The Telecom Network space has changed immensely in the last decade and the journey towards network cloudification has been definitely very interesting to watch with massive adoption globally in recent years.

Network Cloudification at a very high level is basically converting actual network functions(routers,firewall, Evolved Packet Core(EPC), IP Multimedia Subsystem(IMS),etc) into a software package and deploying them on a network cloud (public, private, hybrid,on premise) running using commercial IT servers.

Having been part of the Telecom industry for more than 9yrs, I have been fortunate to work on legacy setup as well as Telco NFV & Cloud environment during this tenure with focus on Telco technologies & use cases like 4G LTE, Voice Over LTE (VoLTE), virtualized enterprise offerings and 5G lately.

Starting in the industry back in 2011 I was introduced to the Legacy network setup having dedicated hardware for each Network Function by the vendors along with ecosystem of supporting network equipment, functions and necessary support by the same vendors.

This scenario started to change around 2014-15 time frame when concept of Virtualization started getting adopted in Network Industry with introduction of NFV(Network Function Virtualization) and SDN (Software Defined Network).

The NFV architecture finalized by ETSI (European Telecommunication Standards Institute) and accepted globally is shown along with reference SDN Architecture.

NFV & SDN provided the service providers a path towards deploying Commercial Of The Shelf(COTS) x86 Servers; deploying multiple Virtualized Network Functions(VNFs) on these servers and scaling them based on workloads with minimum downtime; better managing their infrastructure utilization and moving away from vendor lockdown. Also with VNFs the operators had an opportunity of moving the software element of network functions & its operations to the cloud which provided them the flexibility with respect to implementation & management.

While Virtualization had been adopted by the IT industry for few years, it was something new and revolutionary for the Telecom Network Industry as it was changing the way the whole industry operated. The industry was moving away from the existing Hardware based Network Functions to Software(VNF) like in IT running on commercially available x86 Servers.

However, definitely unlike legacy setup where both hardware and software was coupled and optimized for efficiency, virtualized setup had its challenges because of which its adoption was slow. Depending on the geography and risk taking appetite of the service provider every operator had its own phase wise plan for adoption of NFV where they would introduce NFV for select components or for greenfield deployments and have them operate along with their existing infrastructure till they are satisfied.

While virtualization of network looked very promising, implementation of VNFs had its own set of challenges. VNFs being deployed were dependent on the hypervisor configuration and first require it to be configured in lines with its own requirements. Secondly, VNF packages consisted of entire guest OS along with other libraries & packages making it bulky, requiring lot of time to startup and infrastructure computing resources (CPU & RAM). Also due to this dependence on hypervisor configuration & computing resources portability of VNFs becomes a challenge.

In order to address the above challenges and making solutions cloud native, concept of Containerization has started to get adopted in recent years (2018-19 onward) where VNFs are being replaced with Containerized Network Functions (CNFs) and OS level virtualization takes place. Due to the lightweight nature of containers, requiring less start up time, and being infrastructure agnostic CNFs are being preferred now. The ability to deploy docker containers on any Linux and Windows system gives it flexibility to be deployed on any cloud platform(Amazon Web Services(AWS) EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service), IBM Cloud, Red Hat OpenStack, Red Hat OpenShift, etc).

Like Virtualization, Containerized solutions are also being considered for adoption in phase wise manner by operators for brownfield implementations. For the brownfield setups, operators are considering mix of legacy , VNFs & CNFs initially and later moving everything to the cloud in form of VNF/CNF. However in case of greenfield operators or greenfield data centers or 5G network deployment CNFs are being preferred. 2 greenfield deployments currently underway are for Dish Network in US & Rakuten in Japan & they are working towards setting up a purely cloud native network for 4G & future 5G. In order to meet these requirements, many of the VNF vendors have already created their CNFs, while many others are in the process.

The movement of network functions to the cloud (Network Cloudification) using COTS hardware as physical layer through adoption of Virtualization & Containerization has along the way changed the landscape of the telecom industry in multiple ways:

Transformation of existing offerings: Existing dedicated vendors of network functions(eg. Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia/ALU,etc) had to first create software versions of their products for multiple platforms (OpenStack KVM , VMWARE ESXI, Microsoft Hyper-V, etc) followed by changing their business models to a software licensing one instead of their existing which relied heavily on maximizing hardware sales.
Increase of vendors & products involved in a network setup : Due to separation of hardware(NFVI) & software(VNF, EMS, OSS) and introduction of more components as per the ETSI NFV framework shown above (Management & Network Orchestration (MANO):Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM), VNF Manager(VNFM), NFV Orchestrator(NFVO)), more players could participate in this telecom ecosystem instead of being restricted like before.
Entry of many new entrants:

Startups (Affirmed Networks, Metaswitch, Altiostar, etc)
IT players (Google, HP, Dell, Red Hat, Oracle, NetNumber, Mavenir, etc) who expertise in virtualized hardware/software/network space .
Major Cloud providers(AWS, Alibaba, Microsoft Azure, etc) started hosting telecom services / network functions for both consumer & enterprise segment offerings. .
Companies from other verticals like e-commerce( Rakuten) & Media & Entertainment(Dish) have also forayed into offering their own telecom networks.

Open Source Offerings: In new areas like MANO many Global network operators & vendors collaborated as part of many open source projects to create MANO offerings (e.g. ONAP, OPNFV, OSM, Open-O,etc)
Acquisitions: Eventually we even saw some of the small VNF companies getting acquired by bigger IT companies or service providers. (Affirmed & Metaswitch Acquired by Microsoft, Reliance Jio acquired Radisys)

In addition to above, network cloudification enables providing use cases under the foray of 5G umbrella i.e. Enhanced Mobile Broadband, Ultra Reliable Low Latency communication(Autonomous Vehicles, Augmented Reality(AR)/Virtual Reality(VR),etc) & IOT (Smart Parking, Smart Home, etc). Also online services & applications provided to customers from different industries like E-Commerce, Retail, Media & Entertainment & Banking can be optimized to provide more user engaging and enriching experience.

Below are few of the major greenfield deployment related news involving Network Cloudification that have taken place or are ongoing in 2020.

Some of the major acquisitions news are shown below that will play major roles in area of network cloudification & deployment of 5G/IOT services.

To summarize, the game is the same but the rules have changed with Virtualization and Cloudification and Network game moving from Hardware proprietary to IT Software based. This new Telco involves merging of Networking technologies with Cloud, IT & DevOps technologies. To successfully implement the new Telco, the industries new need of the hour involves requiring employees with knowledge & experience with Cloud/ virtualization technologies and associated programming/scripting languages like Python,etc.

In conclusion, the last decade has been very interesting in Network Evolution and one can only imagine the countless possibilities of what will happen in this next decade. "Definitely going to be exciting!!.

Disclaimer: The post above expresses my sole viewpoint and not the opinion of any organization I work with presently or in the past.

VoLTE: Quick overview and VoLTE launches by AT&T ,T- Mobile, Verizon

2014-05-26T06:49:00.000+05:30

Been a long time since I wrote my last post, however having been involved with Voice Over LTE(VoLTE) with AT&T as well as reading news articles on how Verizon and T- Mobile have come out in this field decided to summarize the same little bit ....

VoLTE:Quick Overview
What is VoLTE: VoLTE as the name "Voice Over LTE" implies involves transmitting Voice over LTE Network.

Background of Voice and Data currently in 3g and LTE : Currently in 3G and 4G LTE data is transmitted over a packet switched network in packets like in any IP based computer Network. However Voice is transmitted through circuit switched network. In LTE networks when a phone call arrives radio on device falls to 3g and voice goes through 3g circuit switched network .

Concept of VoLTE: Like mentioned above VoLTE is Voice over LTE which explains the difference with 3g and LTE networks till now. On a device supporting VoLTE both voice and data is transmitted over packet switched network. VoLTE is telecommunication network equivalent of VoIP. LTE Network serves as the IP network for Voice to be transmitted over.

Advantages of VoLTE: 1. VoLTE provides HD Voice enabling clearer voice calls by reducing Latency and improving QOS. 2. Having access to LTE browsing while on a phone call enabling high speed data and voice access simultaneously. 3. VoLTE uses IMS(IP Multimedia Subsystem) network for handling traffic which enables operators to easily support inter operability with any technology. 4. The operators will be eventually able to shut down 2g and 3g networks.

VoLTE launches by AT&T, T-Mobile,Verizon

AT&T: AT&T launched VoLTE on Friday May 23rd,2014 in select markets namely Illinois,Indiana,Minnesota and Wisconsin. They are launching VoLTE market by market to enable inter-operatibility with existing 2g,3g, LTE networks .

Verizon: Verizon unlike AT&T decided to perform Nationwide rollout of the VoLTE service unlike market wise approach of AT&T. Verizon wants to capitalize on its extensive LTE coverage and also CDMA coverage that is handling majority voice and data traffic already. They also plan on introducing video calling like facetime at the same time as a VAS to distinguish itself from its competitors.

T-Mobile: T- Mobile once again in its competing fashion with AT&T decided to launch VoLTE a day ahead. T- Mobile launched its VoLTE feature in Seattle market on Thursday May 22nd, 2014, They capitalized on their recent acquisition of Metro PCS who were first to launch VoLTE in Dallas TX in mid 2012.

Disclaimer: The information above has been taken from online sites like Rcrwireless.com and few other sites.

Sprint brings free TV to iPhone

2012-03-02T05:00:00.001+05:30

Sprint Nextel has launched its Sprint TV App in the iOS app store, enabling millions of iPhone owners to watch free TV on their phones. Powered by MobiTV, the Sprint TV App will be free with Sprint’s unlimited data plans. Free channels will include the three major broadcast networks as well as ESPN, Disney, and The Weather Channel. For $10 a month, customers can add FOX News, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and ABC Family.
Free TV has been available for Android devices for some time, but so far no major carrier has offered an app that consolidates mainstream television offerings. Hulu Plus offers a wider variety of content for mobile devices, but charges $8.00 a month.
Sprint is the only one of the top 3 US carriers still offering unlimited data, and the only one NOT offering the IPad. But that could change very soon. Apple’s iPad 3 is expected to launch next week and with a new product Apple has the chance to announce a partnership with a new carrier. Since TV shows are clearly more compelling on a tablet than on a smartphone, and since Sprint is the only major carrier with an unlimited data plan and a free iOS TV app, an iPad for Sprint might make sense.

Telenor makes Wikipedia available to 135M customers in Asia, Europe

2012-02-29T09:20:00.007+05:30

Telenor Group and the Wikimedia Foundation Tuesday announced a new partnership to offer Wikipedia free of traffic charges on mobile devices to Telenor customers in Asia and Southeastern Europe.

By making versions of Wikipedia available to 135 million mobile customers, Telenor Group and the Wikimedia Foundation demonstrate a shared commitment to increasing access to the free and open knowledge available on Wikipedia, the Norway-based telecom giant stated in a release.

According to Wikimedia Foundation, the initiative is a part of its mobile strategy, which focuses on reaching the billions of people around the world whose primary opportunity to access the Internet is via a mobile device.

“The Wikimedia Foundation is working to remove barriers to free knowledge, and for most people around the world right now, cost and accessibility are the two biggest hurdles,” says Barry Newstead, Wikimedia’s Chief Global Development Officer.

“We applaud Telenor for joining us to deliver free access to Wikipedia for their customers. Through this partnership, we move a step closer to providing the sum of all knowledge to everyone in the world,” Newstead added.

The telecom group stated that the partnership demonstrates its commitment to bring more value to its mobile customers. It said the company has pioneered the development of value-added services to rural and underserved communities in Asia.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with the Wikimedia Foundation. Telenor has pioneered affordable, mobile communications across much of Asia, and we have built a track record of offering vital services with a significant outreach,” Executive Vice President and Head of Digital Services at Telenor Group, Kristin Skogen Lund, said.

“With this agreement, we are first in Asia to bring a vast knowledge source to the millions in underserved communities across the region,” Lund added.

The 3-year partnership between Telenor Group and the Wikimedia Foundation will cover 135 million users. The agreement is signed by seven countries: Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Montenegro and Serbia. By the end of the year, more markets are expected to join. The agreement will be implemented step by step throughout 2012, with the first markets launching during the second quarter, the company said.

Each local Telenor affiliate will establish technical solutions together with the Wikimedia Foundation. Customers with a Telenor SIM will be able to access a version of the encyclopedia as many times as they like in a given period, at no charge, as long as they stay within Wikipedia’s pages.

PolyCom and HTC to bring video conferencing to smartphones

2012-02-29T09:20:00.004+05:30

PolyCom’s RealPresence video conferencing solution will be available for select HTC smartphones later this year, the two companies announced at Mobile World Congress. HTC smartphone owners will be able to download RealPresence from the Android Market by the middle of this year, according to PolyCom.
RealPresence has been available for tablets since last October and has primarily been marketed to enterprise IT departments. The move to smartphones has been expected, as PolyCom works to extend its reach beyond the enterprise. Although its video conferencing solution is now used primarily for work-related tasks, the possibilities could expand considerably if the software proliferates on smartphones.
“Increasingly, our customers are seeing the consumerization of IT; employees are bringing their favorite devices to work, and they want them supported on the corporate network,” said Sue Hayden, executive vice president of strategic alliances with Polycom. “Our new relationship with HTC helps customers embrace this trend, ensuring mobile workers and road warriors can enjoy high-quality mobile video collaboration solutions from anywhere without sacrificing quality, security or reliability.”

Telefónica to deploy LTE in 2.6Ghz

2012-02-29T09:20:00.001+05:30

Spain’s Telefónica announced LTE deployment atMobile World Congress, saying it will use Alcatel Lucent’s LightRadio technology in the 2.6Ghz frequency band. Deployment is expected to begin in Chile and Brazil.
According to the company, the service will provide download speeds of 100 Mbps, and between 40-60Mbps on upload.

Telefónica explained that the difference in its deployment is that in the conventional deployment, radio base stations co-exist with 4G metro cells (small base stations incorporating antennas and radio) working on the same frequency and with no interference.
During the announcement, Telefónica highlighted as the most significant feature the increased capacity to support 30 people browsing simultaneously with an average speed of 30Mbps. The telecom operator noted that the network supports speeds of up to 10 times those offered by the 3G network, with download speeds of 100Mbps, upload speeds of 40-60 Mbps and with latency times of around 20-25 milliseconds.
Enrique Blanco, Telefónica’s chief technology officer, said in a statement, the challenge ahead is to ensure that all the technologies currently being deployed – 2G, 3G, LTE, Wi-Fi and Fiber – can co-exist to deliver next generation communications.

T-Mobile USA unveils network initiatives, LTE planned for 2013; iPhone on the horizon?

2012-02-24T02:49:00.002+05:30

Months after having its acquisition attempt by AT&T quashed by regulators, T-Mobile USA laid out its plans for remaining a strong No. 4 challenger in the market, including $4 billion in network investments leading to the launch of LTE services next year.
The carrier, which announced a similar network reinvigoration plan last year just prior to AT&T’s acquisition bid, said it plans to install new equipment at 37,000 cell sites and re-farm spectrum in the 1.9 GHz band currently used for its GSM-based services to launch HSPA+ services, which would then allow for the re-farming of its 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum currently used for HSPA+ services to bolster the spectrum gleaned from the merger break up to launch LTE in the 1.7/2.1 GHz band.
T-Mobile USA’s management noted that the spectrum received from AT&T, which still needs to move through regulatory approval, will leave the carrier with approximately 60 megahertz of spectrum across the top 100 markets, an increase from its current 54 megahertz. In addition, the spectrum moves will leave the carrier with a more harmonious spectrum position with HSPA services running in the 1.9 GHz band similar to AT&T Mobility and LTE services running in the 1.7/2.1 GHz band similar to plans for both AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless. This should allow the carrier to be a better match for offering Apple’s iPhone device, which in its current form taps the 1.9 GHz band for HSPA access.
T-Mobile USA claims that the $4 billion in network investments over the next two year, representing $1.4 billion in incremental network investments, along with the spectrum re-farming will allow it to launch “broad” LTE coverage in the top 50 markets and operate with 20 megahertz of spectrum in 75% of the top 25 markets. The carrier will continue to rely on its HSPA+ services that it claims currently cover more than 200 million potential customers.
There was no word from the carrier on where it might get the additional funds, nor if those funds would come from parent company Deutsche Telekom, which pocketed $3 billion in break-up fees from AT&T.
In addition to the network enhancements, T-Mobile USA said it will also aggressively pursue the enterprise market, once a staple for its BlackBerry offering; add 1,000 sales positions; ramp up its already considerable advertising and marketing efforts; and target mobile virtual network operators for hosting on its network.
The carrier is holding a press conference this morning to provide more details on its plans. Stay tuned to RCR Wireless News for more information.

T-Mobile USA hammered by customer defections in Q4

2012-02-24T02:48:00.001+05:30

T-Mobile USA ended 2011 on a sour note as the carrier posted a marked increase in customer losses as well as the collapse of its planned acquisition by AT&T, both of which were somewhat related.
T-Mobile USA said it lost 526,000 customers during the fourth quarter of 2011, pushing its customer base down to 33.2 million total customers on its network. The customer defections were substantially greater than the 23,000 customers it lost during the fourth quarter of 2010 and reversed the positive gain of 126,000 subscribers during the third quarter of last year.
The customer losses were driven by its contract customer base, which lost 802,000 connections during the quarter, including the loss of 95,000 “connected devices” during the quarter. Prepaid customer growth did manage to grow year-over-year from 229,000 net additions in 2010 to 312,000 net additions last year, with the carrier noting it was serving 3.6 million indirect prepaid customers on its network at the end of 2011.
By comparison, T-Mobile USA’s larger rivals all posted customer gains during the fourth quarter, including _blank>2.5 million net connection additions posted by AT&T Mobility; 1.1 million net additions posted by Sprint Nextel; and 969,000 net customer additions posted by Verizon Wireless; and
T-Mobile USA noted that the customer losses, especially on the postpaid side were due to the launch of the Apple iPhone 4S during the quarter by its larger rivals. T-Mobile USA hinted that the iPhone situation might be reversed in the future due to network initiatives that will see the operator harmonize its network technology and spectrum bands to that currently employed in the device.
Customer defections were also evident in the sharp increase in customer churn during the quarter, which surged from 3.5% during the third quarter of 2011 to 4% during the final three months of the year. The only bright spot for its churn results came from its prepaid operations, which dropped from 7.2% in Q3 to 6.8% in Q4. It should be noted that at 6.8% monthly churn T-Mobile USA was seeing more than 81% of its prepaid base eventually cancel services.
T-Mobile USA’s management noted that the uncertainty regarding the AT&T transaction also impacted customer results.
Average revenue per user remained steady at $46, with data services accounting for 31% of that total, up from 30% during the third quarter of the year.
T-Mobile USA cost per gross customer dropped year-over-year from $290 during the fourth quarter of 2010 to $270 in 2011, while its cash cost per user dipped from $24 in 2010 to $23 last year.
The flat ARPU levels along with the diminished customer base resulted in a dip in total revenues for the quarter from more than $5.3 billion in 2010 to just under $5.2 billion last year. The carrier did also manage to lower operating expenses from just over $4 billion in 2010 to less than $3.8 billion last year.

iPad in China: Apple scores small victory, big decision next week

2012-02-24T02:45:00.000+05:30

The iPad will remain on sale in Shanghai for now, after a local court denied efforts by China’s Proview to force retailers to remove the tablets from their stores. Proview, which makes computer monitors, is fighting Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) in courts all over China for the rights to the iPad name.
“I think all eyes should be on this Shenzhen appellate case later this month,” says Stan Abrams, a law professor in Beijing who has been following the cases. The Shenzhen court ruled in Proview’s favor earlier this month, and iPads were removed from store shelves. The appeal in that case is expected to be heard on Wednesday, February 29.
With its $97 billion cash hoard, Apple could end the cases quickly by setting with Proview. Proview’s monitor business is in decline, and the company has more to gain from a cash settlement than from holding onto the iPad name. But Abrams says that Apple is not ready to give in. “I have a feeling that the two sides are pretty far apart on a number,” he told RCR Wireless News earlier this month.

DAS and picocells come together

2012-02-22T03:32:00.002+05:30

TE Connectivity and Ip.access have teamed up to integrate picocell technology into a distributed antenna system.
“Traditionally we have seen indoor small cells and DAS as competitive, but as time has gone on we have seen these product solutions as compatible,” Ip.access CTO Nick Johnson told RCR Wireless News. Ip.access says its E16 picocell access point will be integrated with TE’s DAS products, and will be demonstrated next week at TE’s booth at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain.
“This integrated DAS and small-cell system brings a new level of simplicity and ease of deployment to enterprise mobile networks,” said Ip.access CEO Simon Brown. “Our E16 picocell provides the capacity enterprises need for their mobile users with cost-effective Ethernet backhaul, while the TE DAS products distribute that capacity throughout a facility or campus.”
Under terms of the agreement, ip.access will furnish a baseband processing unit with the same features as its E16 3G picocell, integrated into a single card that can be inserted into TE’s InterReach Spectrum digital DAS. The system is designed to eliminate A/D and D/A converters and RF interfacing equipment since the Ip.access base station is connected directly to the DAS. This is expected to improve signal quality and reduce heat dissipation, power consumption and deployment space.

Ericsson to buy BelAir Networks

2012-02-22T03:31:00.002+05:30

The world’s largest maker of telecom networking equipment is making a big bet on Wi-Fi. Sweden’s Ericsson (ERIC) says it will buy privately held BelAir Networks for an undisclosed sum, confirming reports that first appeared last month. “We are very excited today because we believe that there is a huge interest in the market for Wi-Fi complementing 3GPP technology,” Ericsson CTO Ulf Ewaldsson told RCR Wireless News.
“We have decided to acquire BelAir because they are leaders in carrier grade Wi-Fi solutions and in projects that have very large numbers of cells and are connnected to controllers that make it possible to run traffic and do authentication and tie in to the core network,” says Ewaldsson. The deal gives Ericsson access to Ontario, Canada-based BelAir’s small cell solution. The company has been able to offload data traffic by hanging picocells from cable in metro areas, and has been able to integrate these cells into macro networks.
Ewaldsson says Ericsson’s goal is to help carriers offer wireless customers a seamless experience. “The network will make the decision about how to connect,” he says, in a way that will be transparent to the user.
As part of the transaction, Ericsson will gain access to BelAir’s intellectual property rights, and established customer contracts and relationships, and will integrate BelAir’s approximately 120 employees. Ewaldsson says the deal is a good fit geographically as well as technically. “We are already very present in Ottawa,” he says. “As you know we bought part of Nortel Networks and we have a a major research and development center for 4G in Ottawa.”
Ericsson’s acquisition may encourage BelAir’s competitors to look for their own dance partners. Ruckus Wireless is a competitor in the Wi-Fi space that has been contemplating an initial public offering, but now the company’s high profile CEO Selina Lo may have buyout offers to consider as well

D-Block allocation to open door for public-safety LTE network

2012-02-22T03:30:00.001+05:30

Congress’ move to sign off on the public-safety D-Block frequency allocation backs up key conclusions from a recently published report from IMS Research that predicted more than three million public-safety users will be on private LTE networks by 2021.
The decision by Congress is expected to pave the way for private LTE networks to be deployed by public safety agencies across the country.
Democratic Senators, including Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), over the last few days announced that public safety organizations in the United States will not only get the much awaited allocation of D-Block in the 700 Mhz band, but will also get $7 billion in funding to support the build out of these private LTE networks.
According to IMS Research, this developments will not only have a dramatic impact on the U.S. market, but the announcement will also push the rest of the world into action as the debate around the future of broadband LMR solution continues. IMS Research stated that this will be seen as good news to LMR users as a recent survey conducted in North America and Europe indicated that nearly two-thirds of public safety agencies preferred an LTE solution for their future data needs.
“D-Block allocation and funding will now finally allow for this,” IMS Research stated.
“This is good news for the industry just in time for the forthcoming IWCE show,” said Thomas Lynch, mobile radio market analyst at IMS Research. “We expect some significant announcements during the show and look forward to seeing the emergence of LTE as the preferred mobile wireless technology for public safety agencies.”
IMS Research also predicted that the announcement will now further the case for LTE over other solutions like WiMAX and HSPA

Telecom industry interesting news & developments

Journey to 5G adoption: Key network transformation areas

Journey to 5G adoption: Key network transformation areas

Key focus areas to consider as part of Network Transformation for maximum 5G benefits

1. Adopting Cloud Technologies:

2. Containers based Microservices Architecture:

3. OSS/BSS Modernization:

4. End to End Network Service Orchestrator

5. ORAN implementation:

6. Service Based Architecture 5G Core:

Conclusion

5G Buzz: What does "5G launch"​ mean in 2021 & whats the "Truly 5G"​ target

Cloud Providers & Telco 5G: AWS, Microsoft & Google

Cloud Providers & Telco 5G: AWS, Microsoft & Google

5G & Use Cases

Cloud Providers & Telco 5G opportunity

Road to Network Cloudification: Summary Table (WIP)

Road To Network Cloudification: Australia & New Zealand

Road to Network Cloudification: Australia & New Zealand

Australia

New Zealand

Road To Network Cloudification: Singapore, South Korea & Japan

Road to Network Cloudification: Singapore, South Korea & Japan

Road to Network Cloudification: Telco Cloud & NFV Reference Architecture for Telco Cloud - Red Hat, VMWare, Mirantis, UNICA & ECOMP

TELCO CLOUD:

NFV REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE FOR TELCO CLOUD:

RED HAT:

VMware vCloud NFV:

Mirantis Cloud Platform:

UNICA:

ECOMP:

Network Transformation: TM Forum's Open API & Open Digital Architecture (ODA)

Network Transformation: TM Forum's Open API & Open Digital Architecture (ODA)

OpenAPIs:

Open Digital Architecture:

Road to Network Cloudification: Europe

Road to Network Cloudification: Europe

Rest Of Europe

Road to Network Cloudification: UK

Road to Network Cloudification: UK

UK

Road to Network Cloudification: India

Road to Network Cloudification: India

INDIA

Road to Network Cloudification: USA & Canada

Road to Network Cloudification: USA & CANADA

USA:

CANADA:

Major Telecom Service providers Worldwide

Major Telecom Service providers Worldwide

Telecom Network Evolution in Last decade (2011-2020): Legacy to Network Cloudification

Telecom Network Evolution in Last decade (2011-2020): Legacy to Network Cloudification

VoLTE: Quick overview and VoLTE launches by AT&T ,T- Mobile, Verizon

Sprint brings free TV to iPhone

Telenor makes Wikipedia available to 135M customers in Asia, Europe

PolyCom and HTC to bring video conferencing to smartphones

Telefónica to deploy LTE in 2.6Ghz

T-Mobile USA unveils network initiatives, LTE planned for 2013; iPhone on the horizon?

T-Mobile USA hammered by customer defections in Q4

iPad in China: Apple scores small victory, big decision next week

DAS and picocells come together

Ericsson to buy BelAir Networks

D-Block allocation to open door for public-safety LTE network

5G Buzz: What does "5G launch" mean in 2021 & whats the "Truly 5G" target