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ONAP sparks up its first release – Amsterdam

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The Open Network Automation Platform has served up its first release, which is designed to to offer a unified architecture for network automation.

Such is the mind-boggling complexity of virtualizing and automating networks that open source collaboration is widely considered to be the most effective way of doing so in an interoperable way. ONAP claims this is the first open source project to unite the majority of operators with the majority of vendors in building an automation and orchestration platform. Apparently ONAP’s members account for 55% of the world’s mobile subscribers.

“Amsterdam represents significant progress for both the ONAP community and the greater open source networking ecosystem at large,” said Arpit Joshipura, GM of Networking and Orchestration at The Linux Foundation, which runs ONAP. “By bringing together member resources, Amsterdam is the first step toward realization of a globally shared architecture and implementation for network automation, based on open source and open standards.”

The two specific use-cases covered by Amsterdam are VoLTE – specifically virtualizing the core network to allow the management of a VoLTE service – and residential vCPE – allwing CSPs to add new services quickly and easily. As you might have guessed, this starts a sequence of capital city release names in alphabetical order. The next one will be called Beijing and is scheduled for the summer of 2018, which may coincide with 3GPP release 15 for 5G.

In its thorough analysis of the release, Light Reading is cautiously positive about the release, noting that ONAP seems to be gathering the kind of critical mass of contributors that will be vital for it to be an industry-wide platform, although AT&T seems to be doing much of the heavy lifting. Here’s a vid.

 


Virtualization is going to happen, but that isn’t the point

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A question was raised at The Great Telco Debate event which caused a stir: will virtualization make telcos agile and competitive? Of course it will, but it needs to happen faster was the feedback.

This is perhaps the point which the industry doesn’t seem to be getting at the moment. Virtualization is critical for the telcos to operate in the digital economy, but progress has been slow. The question of whether virtualization is important is a moot point, everyone gets it, but what doesn’t seem to have sunk in is the fact it needs to happen quicker.

Colt is a great example of what is achievable when virtualization projects are accelerated. Mirko Voltolini, Colt’s Head of Network on Demand, gave some great insight on the Network on Demand product during his talk, which is essentially the delivery of connectivity through a cloud business model. Customers can scale up and scale down, while being billed by the hour. It is the flexibility and scalability which the digital economy demands.

This is only one product which the Colt team offer, but the concept of virtualization is one which has enabled this change. “We can fail fast and fail often, which is something we have not experienced before,” Voltolini said. It allows Voltolini and his colleagues to create and tweak products, learn from experiences and launch new services quicker. It is the OTT business model, which is proving so successful.

But to create this concept, Voltolini highlighted that virtualizing the network is a key aspect of any progression towards the digital economy, but then so are DevOps and business transformation projects. This is perhaps where many of the telcos are falling behind the times; virtualization is being viewed as a network initiative, whereas there are wider needs and implications if a telco is to remain relevant in the connected community. From Voltolini’s perspective, a successful virtualization project marries the needs and demands of the network, IT and the business in one.

One point which was raised from the audience was virtualization is like electricity, necessary but not sufficient alone. This was backed up by another frustrated voice, virtualization is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas; there are too many people, both internally and externally, at the telcos who will lose out through the process of virtualization.

So why is virtualization taking so long? Let’s get the obvious point out of the way first and foremost, it is difficult and expensive. But now onto the more interesting point, the projects are too narrowly focused. Some telcos are resisting the idea that every company is now a software company, some individuals are stuck in the analogue age of business and some parties have not evolved to the digital world yet and therefore want to don’t want to lose out just yet.

Virtualization is going to happen quite simply because it has to. But when it is going to happen is a difficult question. The tide is turning more quickly than the super tankers can turn which is very worrying for the longer standing players in the telco vertical. The younger players, such as Three for example, might be holding back smiles as they are not as burdened by the legacy of the industry, but whether this enthusiasm is held by everyone else remains to be seen.

Huawei looks to the cloud for MWC inspiration

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Ericsson has gone for IoT, Nokia is gunning for smart cities and now Huawei has unveiled its script for Mobile World Congress; cloud.

It should perhaps come as little surprise, but Huawei is leaning on the cloud to give it the edge over rivals at the annual extravaganza. The first act will of course focus on how caring and philanthropic the Chinese giant is, concentrating on the idea of Cloud Central Office (CloudCO) architecture standards and the standardization projects.

According to the Broadband Forum, CloudCO is a recasting of the Central Office hosting infrastructure that utilizes SDN, NFV and Cloud technologies to support network functions. Right now Huawei is attempting to push forward standardization project in this area, which it believes is important for providing references for operators in reconstructing broadband network architectures. These standards take the industry one step closer towards implementing cloud networks.

At the risk of getting very technical, the new standards redefine access and metro networks to build a cloud broadband platform with open interfaces, enabling operators to deliver new services effectively and to shorten service provisioning time. In theory, traditional NE functions are decoupled and then migrated to the cloud. The standards also define northbound APIs to allow automatic lifecycle management over all services, and support for automatic service provisioning, network deployment, and maintenance.

Looking at the focus from a more holistic level, it is quite an interesting move from Huawei. While the wannabees are focusing on more on the usecase side of the industry, the money makers for the operators, Huawei is prioritising more core, network orientated messaging. The difference in approaches is certainly an thought-provoking one, but who are we to question the vendor which dominated the 4G era.

Building on the philanthropic message, Huawei has also announced the initiation of its ‘Slice Mall’ project which is based on the idea of ‘slicing as a service and as a commodity’. With network slicing set to be a key benefit for operators looking to monetize virtualized networks, Huawei claims this new initiative will be focused on helping the operators commercialize 5G slicing and sell the slices into various industry verticals.

Three of the major network vendors have drawn back the curtain on their plans, now we are just waiting on ZTE to complete the set. Keep an eye out on Sunday afternoon.

Ericsson gets its own Windy Italian job

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Ericsson has announced it has won a contract to virtualise and upgrade the core network of Italian operator Wind Tre as part of the 5G-evolution core modernization strategy.

With the five-year contract set to kick off this quarter includes the delivery of a self-contained project to deploy a virtualized core network and orchestration capabilities according to ETSI NFV Management and Orchestration (MANO) group standards.

“This is another big step in the journey that Wind Tre is making to provide the best quality network and high value services to our customers,” said Benoit Hanssen, Chief Technology Officer of Wind Tre. “We are transforming to be ready for the digital revolution that 5G and IoT will bring. We are pleased to partner with Ericsson on this important deal which secures a deep knowledge of the existing technology and will provide a state-of-the-art virtualized network.”

“This deal strengthens our core network business with Wind Tre to evolve its existing network and be the partner for their evolution to cloud,” said Arun Bansal, Head of Market Area Europe and Latin America at Ericsson. “We will provide state-of-the-art virtual core network applications, NFV infrastructure, orchestration and end-to-end professional services enabling Wind Tre to provide great experiences to its customers and opening up IoT opportunities as we move towards 5G. This deal is the result of our joint efforts and close working relationship in previous years with both Wind and Tre.”

The contract will make use of various Ericsson technologies including virtual EPC, virtual IMS and virtual UDC (User Data Consolidation), deployed on Ericsson’s NFVi solution which aligns with the ETSI NFV Architectural Framework and the ETSI Management and Orchestration (MANO) architecture.

Airship launched by AT&T and SK Telecom

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AT&T and SK Telecom have jointly announced the launch of a new open infrastructure project called Airship, intended to simplify the process of deploying cloud infrastructure.

Airship uses the OpenStack-Helm project as a foundation, building a collection of open source tools to allow operators, IT service providers or enterprise organizations to more easily deploy and manage OpenStack, focusing more specifically on container technologies like Kubernetes and Helm. The mission statement is a simple one; make it easier to more predictably build and manage cloud infrastructure.

“Airship gives cloud operators a capability to manage sites at every stage from creation through all the updates, including baremetal installation, OpenStack creation, configuration changes and OpenStack upgrades,” SK Telecom said in a statement. “It does all this through a unified, declarative, fully containerized, and cloud-native platform.”

The initial focus of this project is the implementation of a declarative platform to introduce OpenStack on Kubernetes (OOK) and the lifecycle management of the resulting cloud, with the scale, speed, resiliency, flexibility, and operational predictability demanded of network clouds. The idea of a declarative platform is every aspect of the cloud is defined in standardized documents, where the user manages the documents themselves, submits them and lets the platform takes care of the rest.

The Airship initiative will initially consist of eight sub-projects:

  • Armada – An orchestrator for deploying and upgrading a collection of Helm charts
  • Berth – A mechanism for managing VMs on top of Kubernetes via Helm
  • Deckhand – A configuration management service with features to support managing large cluster configurations
  • Diving Bell – A lightweight solution for bare metal configuration management
  • Drydock – A declarative host provisioning system built initially to leverage MaaS for baremetal host deployment
  • Pegleg – A tool to organize configuration of multiple Airship deployments
  • Promenade – A deployment system for resilient, self-hosted Kubernetes
  • Shipyard – A cluster lifecycle orchestrator for Airship

“Airship is going to allow AT&T and other operators to deliver cloud infrastructure predictably that is 100% declarative, where Day Zero is managed the same as future updates via a single unified workflow, and where absolutely everything is a container from the bare metal up,” said Ryan van Wyk, Assistant VP of Cloud Platform Development at AT&T Labs.

While the emergence of another open source project is nothing too revolutionary, AT&T has stated it will act as the foundation of its network cloud that will power the 5G core supporting the 2018 launch of 5G service in 12 cities. Airship will also be used by Akraino Edge Stack, another project which intends to create an open source software stack supporting high-availability cloud services optimized for edge computing systems and applications. Two early use-cases certainly add an element of credibility.

BT decides to resell some Cisco SD-WAN gear

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UK telco group BT has launched a new global managed service based around Cisco software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) kit.

BT has a fairly established history of partnering with Cisco, so this is more of an extension of the existing relationship than something completely new. To date it has all been about the NFV and SDN so this latest initiative is pretty consistent with that.

Most of the announcement reads like a piece of Cisco marketing, detailing what a great idea ‘BT Connect Cisco SD-WAN’ is if you want to keep an eye on the data flows across your WAN. This is especially handy in the transition to the cloud, which seems to be a big reason why BT wants to add it to its managed services portfolio.

“Over 90 per cent of BT’s global WAN customers use Cisco technology and the vast majority ask us to manage it,” said Keith Langridge, VP of Network Services at BT. “Today’s announcement gives them a choice of physical or virtualised Cisco SD-WAN portfolio delivered as managed services backed by our excellent security credentials.

“We have a wealth of know-how and experience in designing hybrid networks and a global infrastructure engineered for SD-WAN and NFV service delivery. Organisations looking at taking their first step to SD-WAN can be reassured that in BT, they have an established, trusted Cisco partner able to give professional services advice to plan, build and evolve secure and reliable hybrid networks globally.”

“BT is offering the complete portfolio of Cisco SD-WAN-based solutions as managed services and doing so on a truly global scale,” said Scott Harrell, GM of the Enterprise Networking Business at Cisco. “Cisco SD-WAN, built on Viptela technology, is a great example of how intent-based networking is fundamentally changing the blueprint for networking.”

The extra bit of added value BT is claiming concerns its orchestration capabilities, indicating the whole package is aimed at companies generally looking to sort their virtualized lives out. The managed services part promises to hold their hands throughout their network evolution and the tone of the announcement suggests there are more BT/Cisco announcements to come.

VodafoneZiggo tells operators to virtualize fast

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The approach of 5G brings with it the promise of a whole range of exciting new use cases. But before we strap on our VR headsets, the operators need to create networks that live up to the promises.

Unlike the nimble startups which are developing a lot of the technologies that will benefit from 5G, large operators can be slow to adapt to change. In his presentation today at 5G World, Matthias Sauder, Director Network Mobile, VodafoneZiggo Netherlands, gave an update on their current activities to build a network ready for 5G and the issue of speed came up a fair bit.

“As an operator we need to move quicker than before,” said Sauder, highlighting demand from consumers and industry to achieve faster, more reliable networks. “One of the first steps we have to take is getting into the world of NFV and SDN and moving towards a fully virtualised network.”

This seems to be easier said than done. It’s complex to implement virtualisation and many operators have hit barriers integrating this with their current network architectures. Sauder, however, insists it is feasible to move quickly into a virtualised network and that this is the only way for operators to optimise their networks in a scalable way.

As for their updates, VodafoneZiggo have already hit milestones on current LTE networks in their journey to 5G, with a nationwide narrowband IoT network launched at the end of last year and more than 40% of their voice traffic on VoLTE. They are also planning the first services for enterprise customers via network slicing on 4G later in 2018.

Whilst 5G may still be tantalisingly out of reach for most, Sauder is focussed on innovating now and bringing new developments to market as soon as possible. With seemingly every other industry churning out new tech and features at an ever-increasing rate, telcos need to do the same.

At 5G World 2018, we’re surrounded by lots of fast-moving technologies, with co-located events focussing on AR, VR, AI, Blockchain and plenty more tech buzzwords. Perhaps this will give operators a nudge to innovate faster in the run up to 5G.

Exploring the benefits of digitalisation

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Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece freelance Technology Journalist Kate O’Flaherty looks at how digital services based on virtualized networks are set to benefit mobile operators and MVNOs.

At a time of fierce competition coupled with declining revenues, mobile operators and MVNOs are digitising their businesses to boost efficiency and offer better services to customers. According to a World Economic Forum and Accenture report, digital transformation in the telecoms sector has the potential to unlock more than $2 trillion in value over the next decade.

Fuelled by network functions virtualisation (NFV), this transformation is already starting to happen. Efficient use of the network in combination with analytics allows services to be offered dynamically to customers. At the same time, it is forcing a change in business models, with areas such as the Internet of Things (IoT) starting to emerge as new battle grounds.

It is resulting in multiple opportunities to innovate, but there are challenges as operators and MVNOs digitise their businesses. For example, cyber security is a concern as networks are virtualised, because it widens the surface for attack. There can also be technical barriers when implementing networks, while new ways of working such as DevOps require cultural change inside the business.

But experts point to multiple benefits for mobile operators and MVNOs, if they get their digitalisation strategies right. Indeed, NFV is already enabling agility when provisioning services, says Gabriele Di Piazza, VP Products and Solutions, Telco NFV Group, VMware, citing the example of software defined wide area networking (SD-WAN). “It took weeks in the past, and now you can provision on a screen in a few minutes.”

It is with this in mind that the move to virtualised networks is accelerating, with many of the big operators already pushing ahead in their trials and deployments. Carriers are now trying to work out how they will monetise soon-to-launch 5G – which is based on these virtualised networks.

According to Ian Hughes, Analyst at 451 Research: “Mobile operators are upgrading their infrastructure in preparation for 5G. They now need to work out how to partner to take advantage of the benefits.”

It’s a challenge for large operators, but in the meantime, nimble MVNOs could use cloud infrastructure to launch new services, says Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO at Core Network Dynamics. He points out: “With no expensive legacy infrastructure weighing them down, MVNOs are well-positioned to leapfrog mobile operators and jump straight to the public cloud to run their core networks and other network components.”

This also opens the door to other markets, he says. “By controlling critical elements such as the evolved packet core (EPC) themselves – including user authentication and handling data traffic – MVNOs can differentiate and gain a first mover advantage in new, fast-growth markets such as IoT and private LTE.”

Secure networks

The move to virtualisation also brings with it the ability to better control networks. Although the shift away from physical networks raises concerns about hacking, NFV provides the ability to move security functions such as encryption or firewalls from purpose-built hardware onto virtual servers. “This means greater control, agility and connectivity across the network, keeping costs down,” says Conrad Mallon, Chief Network Architect, SSE Enterprise Telecoms.

Virtualisation creates new ways of thinking about security, Pierre Bichon, Consulting Engineer EMEA at Juniper Networks says. “Securing the network with physical appliances is very efficient but relatively static and you need to decide where you apply security. Virtualised networks allow you to do it from anywhere.”

This could become especially important in IoT, he says, pointing out that large fleets of devices that must exist in the field for years are currently very difficult to secure. “Today, IoT is creating the need for a new way to address security,” he explains. “It comes from systems that do not have the processing power to have a firewall or virtual firewall, so the idea is to implement security in the network, as close as possible to the devices.”

There are also multiple opportunities beyond security. At a time when customer churn is high, artificial intelligence (AI) is having a major impact by allowing providers to optimise virtualised networks and provision services more effectively.

AI is also being used more broadly in customer services. Outside NFV, this is seeing the implementation of real-time chat and voice bots to automate and augment traditional agent-to-customer interactions, says Omar Javaid, Chief Product Officer, Vonage.

Solutions such as these can be use by MVNOs and operators to increase efficiency and improve customer service. And several mobile operators have launched their own offerings, such as Vodafone’s TOBi and Telefonica’s Aura. But Javaid says it’s important to ensure bots are seamlessly integrated across all channels.

Barriers to digitalisation

The benefits of digitalisation are clear, but there are still challenges to be overcome before the area can be fully utilised by the telecoms industry. Mallon thinks several barriers are slowing down operator progress: “Slow design processes make transformation projects a faraway reality, and rigid legacy IT systems often make updates or overhauls complicated.”

Meanwhile, at a technology level, says Amol Phadke, Managing Director, Global Network Strategy and Consulting Services, Accenture: “These new technologies are often based on an open source philosophy and utilise collaborative development. This creates interoperability challenges.”

At the same time, the new operating model is “very different from what we see today”, says Phadke. “As it’s software driven, it’s dependent on automation, analytics and AI.”

Cultures are having to change too.  “How do you bring organisations together to create a DevOps-type business model?” asks Phadke. “We are starting to see a merge of design, engineering and IT and this is a challenge.”

But organisations are starting to accept this. “There is recognition that you need an operational and people mind set change” says Di Piazza. “Now, you are blending the world of IT and networks –  and combining skills over three decades based on how you provision, launch, sell and market technology.”

There is no doubt the move to virtualised networks and digital services is one of the biggest changes the telecoms industry has seen. But once the issues are ironed out, operators and MVNOs using their networks can take advantage of a whole range of dynamic services.

And this moment could even come sooner for MVNOs than for the operator giants. Because they can launch solutions based on cloud infrastructure, MVNOs can be among the first to offer their own disruptive digital services.

 

Meet with the key MVNO leaders from around the world at the MVNOs Series events – including the MVNOs Asia and MVNOs North America.


Network slicing can unlock $66 billion of industry opportunities – ABI

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Analyst firm ABI research has had a bit of a spreadsheet frenzy and come to the conclusion that network slicing can create $66 billion of fresh commercial opportunities for telcos.

Just to remind you, network slicing involves prioritising portions of the network to more specific applications, such as high bandwidth, low latency or massive, low-power IoT. Ideally this can be done dynamically via all the virtualised cleverness we’ve been banging on about for so long and will enable MNOs to offer more bespoke services to various industries.

Unlocking all these new ‘verticals’ has the potential to massively increase the total available market to telcos, so long as they can both utilise network slicing to create useful communications services and work out out to both tailor them for and sell into these lovely new markets.

“Telcos (aka Mobile Service Providers or MSPs) are increasingly seeking to create services that are more differentiated and tap into the growth engine of the future, intrinsically linked to a superior experience for end consumers, and operational simplicity for enterprises and end verticals,” said Don Alusha of ABI Research.

“Network slicing revenues will eventually be on an upward trajectory, driven by digital, cloud, and security requirements of multiple industry verticals, particularly for the trio of manufacturing, logistics, and automotive. Realizing the full revenue potential is dependent on essential slicing infrastructure from vendors, and pertinent applications delivered by MSPs.”

Alush thinks BT and Swisscom are ahead of the game when it comes to this sort of thing and are showing the way for others. “This is encouraging and lays the foundation for widespread commercial deployments even before 5G diffusion. There are specific vendors in the market who are addressing end-to-end slicing scenarios that pull together a number of technologies, Nokia and Ericsson chief among them.”

“MSPs and vendors are pursuing different models of collaboration with vertical markets and growth for each market will be driven by premium services, revenue potential and ability to address existing challenges in the short and medium term. Vendors should aim to eliminate complexity through automation and ‘deep’ orchestration, a feat that calls for close collaboration with standard bodies to standardize and achieve alignment apt for commercial deployments and ecosystem integration.”

All good advice, but easier said than done.

Ericsson upgrades Radio System, partners with Juniper on backhaul and buys CENX

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Ahead of MWC Americas Ericsson has embarked on a frenzy of announcements around its core product offering.

The headline news is a significant upgrade to the Ericsson Radio System, its signature RAN product suite that has been a major part of its apparent recovery. Specifically Ericsson is launching something called the RAN Compute portfolio, which consists of a couple of baseband processors and a couple of radio processing units designed to be positioned wherever in the network you want your processing to be done. In other words this is a mobile edge computing play.

The other big thing in new, improved ERS is some new software called Ericsson Spectrum Sharing. This is designed to help with dynamic support of both 4G and 5G on the same spectrum, so long as you’re using ERS shipped since 2015, and can be installed remotely. While some of 5G will take place on higher frequencies, the stuff currently being used by 4G has the best propagation characteristics and will therefore remain valuable. This is the kind of 5G software upgrade Ericsson has been promoting as a key feature of ERS from the start.

“The hardware and software that we are launching today continues to address the flexibility needed for the next-generation networks,” said Ericsson EVP of Networks Fredrik Jejdling. “They offer our customers an expanded and adaptable 5G platform, making it easier for them to deploy 5G.”

We had a chat with Nishant Batra, Head of Product Area Networks at Ericsson, ahead of the announcement and he stressed this is all about ramping ERS’s 5G capability. Initially the propaganda was all about it being 5G upgradable, then about being ready for the 5G launch. Now the narrative revolves around this kit being positioned for the mass deployment of 5G.

Ericsson wants the world to see a picture of growing positive momentum and trying to be the perceived leader in 5G kit is a key part of that. “The momentum has never been better and we want to keep accelerating,” said Batra.

All this RAN shininess isn’t much good without some top-notch backhaul, however, and nobody is claiming that as an Ericsson strength. 5G is set to massively increase the volume of data passing across networks so, which being sure to big-up its own Router 6000 backhaul product and microwave tech, Ericsson has announced the extension of its partnership with Juniper to augment its transport efforts, as well as a new partnership with ECI on the optical side. So much for the big Ericsson Cisco partnership eh?

“Our radio expertise and knowledge in network architecture, end-user applications and standardization work put us in an excellent position to understand the requirements 5G places on transport,” said Jejdling. “By combining our leading transport portfolio with best-in-class partners, we will boost our transport offering and create the critical building blocks of next-generation transport networks that benefit our customers.”

“Commercial 5G is expected to represent close to a quarter of all global network traffic in the next five years,” said Manoj Leelanivas, Chief Product Officer at Juniper Networks. “With both companies bringing together industry-leading network technology, Juniper and Ericsson will be able to more effectively capitalize on the immense global market opportunity in front of us and help our customers simplify their journey to fully operational 5G networks.”

In other Ericsson news it has indulged in a rare bit of M&A via the acquisition of US service assurance vendor CENX. This move is designed to augment Ericsson’s OSS and managed services offerings and CENX is all about cloud-native automation, so its technology and 185 staff should be especially helpful in the area of virtualization. They haven’t said what it cost.

“Dynamic orchestration is crucial in 5G-ready virtualized networks,” said Mats Karlsson, Head of Solution Area OSS at Ericsson. “By bringing CENX into Ericsson, we can continue to build upon the strong competitive advantage we have started as partners. I look forward to meeting and welcoming our new colleagues into Ericsson.”

“Ericsson has been a great partner and for us to take the step to fully join Ericsson gives us the best possible worldwide platform to realize CENX’s ultimate goal – autonomous networking for all,” said Ed Kennedy CEO of CENX. “Our closed-loop service assurance automation capability complements Ericsson’s existing portfolio very well.”

Lastly Ericsson has announced a new partnership with US operator Sprint to build a new virtualized core and operating system dedicated just to IoT. Network slicing will be a major feature of the 5G era and IoT has network requirements quite distinct from other usage models, so it makes sense to not just apportion a piece of the network to it, but customise all the other tech too.

“We are combining our IoT strategy with Ericsson’s expertise to build a platform primed for the most demanding applications like artificial intelligence, edge computing, robotics, autonomous vehicles and more with ultra-low-latency, the highest availability and an unmatched level of security at the chip level,” said Ivo Rook, SVP of IoT for Sprint. “This is a network built for software and it’s ready for 5G. Our IoT platform is for those companies, large and small, that are creating the immediate economy.”

“Sprint will be one of the first to market with a distributed core network and operating system built especially for IoT and powered by Ericsson’s IoT Accelerator platform,” said Asa Tamsons, Head of Business Area Technology & Emerging Business at Ericsson. “Our goal is to make it easy for Sprint and their customers to access and use connected intelligence, enabling instant and actionable insights for a better customer experience and maximum value.”

That Ericsson is making so many announcements ahead of MWC Americas would appear to be a major endorsement of the event and of the GSMA’s regional expansion of the MWC brand. The timing might also have been influenced by the staging of Huawei’s Operations Transformation Forum event and even IFA, and it’s clear there is room in the telecoms calendar for big Autumn trade fests.

CityFibre taunts rivals with 10 Gbps speeds claim

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CityFibre has announced a partnership with Calix to deliver, what it claims, would be the world’s only Software Defined Access (SDA) operating system across, delivering mouth-watering speeds across its fibre network.

With Calix’s AXOS platform, CityFibre is confident it will be able to claim to be the UK’s only advanced-intelligence, wholesale infrastructure company. With a Software Defined Networking (SDN) ecosystem, delivering new levels of programmability, network intelligence and automation, CityFibre claims it will be similar to owning the network, but without the upfront capital risk.

“In Calix we have found a like-minded ally, an innovator that is pushing the boundaries of what is possible when intelligent software meets fibre-only infrastructure,” said CityFibre CEO Greg Mesch.

“Our partnership enables us to unleash the full power and potential of our fibre networks, creating the nation’s fastest, smartest and most accessible, digital communications platform. The ability to scale services up to 100 gigabits per second, while driving customer experience to new levels, highlights the inadequacies of connections that are passed off as fibre today. It also shows that not all full fibre networks are equal and that, as an alternative network builder, CityFibre’s commitment to the UK’s digital future goes far beyond simply putting fibre in the ground.”

And while this might seem like a very sensible announcement for the often combative CityFibre, it has stoked the fire. Through the integration of the Calix platform, CityFibre believes it will be capable of delivering parallel 10 Gbps connections to every home and business, with further potential for speeds of up to 100 Gbps.

“The Calix and CityFibre visions of a software defined access future are perfectly aligned,” said Michael Weening, Calix EVP of field operations. “CityFibre built its network from the beginning to take advantage of all that a fibre infrastructure can enable, while we built AXOS with the intelligence to take that foundation to the next level.

“With AXOS, CityFibre can more rapidly deliver new products, services and features to the market, further distancing itself from legacy competitive offerings that fail to enable true market differentiation. As we continue to innovate on the AXOS platform, the continued speed, agility and efficiencies we enable will allow CityFibre and its partners to change the UK’s broadband market forever.”

Nokia launches some actual applications for SDN

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All the hype surrounding software-defined networking is finally starting to yield some tangible results in the form of three apps from Nokia.

Deciding to kill two buzzwords with one stone, Nokia is claiming its new WaveSuite open applications will jump-start optical network digital transformation. It consists of three apps: Service Enablement, Node Automation and Network Insight. The point of these apps is apparently to offer businesses a new degree of access to networks that is expected to yield novel commercial opportunities.

To help us get our heads around this new piece of networking arcana we spoke to Kyle Hollasch, Director of Marketing for Optical Networking at Nokia. He was most keen to focus on the service enablement app, which he said is “the first software that tackles the issue of resell hierarchy.”

Specifically we’re talking about the reselling of fixed line capacity. This app is designed to massively speed up the capacity reselling process, with the aim of turning it into a billable service. The slide below visualises the concept, in which we have the actual network owner at the base and then several levels of capacity reselling, allowing greater degrees of specialisation and use-case specific solutions.

Nokia WaveSuite slide 1

The node automation app allows network nodes to be controlled via an app on a smartphone, thanks to the magic of SDN. In fact this would appear to be the epitome of SDN as it’s only made possible by that technology. The slide below shows how is it is, at least in theory, possible to interact with a network element via a smartphone, which also opens up the ability to use other smartphone tools such as the GPS and camera.

Nokia WaveSuite slide 2

The network insight app seems to do what is says on the tin, so there doesn’t seem to be the need for further explanation at this stage. “These innovations are the result of years of working closely with our customers to address all aspects of optical networking with open applications enhancing not just operations, but opening up new services and business models,” said Sam Bucci, Head of Optical Networks for Nokia.

As a milestone in the process of virtualizing networks and all the great stuff that’s supposed to come with that, the launch of actual SDN apps seems significant. Whether or not the market agrees and makes tangible business use of these is another matter, however, and only time will tell if good PowerPoint translates into business reality.

Italians clearly aren’t that suspicious of Huawei

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Despite governments around the world turning against Chinese vendors, Telecom Italia has agreed a new partnership with Huawei based on Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) technology.

As part of a strategy aimed at evolving TIM’s network solutions for business customers, Huawei’s SD-WAN technology will be incorporated to create a new TIM service model which will allow customers companies to manage their networks through a single console.

“Today, more than ever, companies need networks that can adapt to different business needs over time, in particular to enable Cloud and VoIP services,” said Luigi Zabatta, Head of Fixed Offer for TIM Chief Business & Top Clients Office. “Thanks to the most advanced technologies available, these networks can be managed both jointly and by customers themselves through simple tools.

“The partnership with Huawei allows us to expand our value proposition for companies and to enrich our offer through the adoption of a technological model that is increasingly and rapidly emerging in the ICT industry.”

The partnership is a major win for Huawei considering the pressure the firm must be feeling over suspicions being peaked around the world. Just as more countries are clamping down on the ability for Huawei to do business, TIM has offered a windfall.

Aside from the on-going Chinese witch hunt over in the US, the Australians have banned Huawei from participating in the 5G bonanza and Korean telcos have left the vendor off preferred supplier lists. Just to add more misery, the UK is seemingly joining in on the trends.

In recent weeks, a letter was sent out from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the National Cyber Security Centre, warning telcos of potential impacts to the 5G supply chain from the Future Telecom Infrastructure Review. China was not mentioned specifically, and neither was Huawei, but sceptical individuals might suggest China would be most squeezed by a security and resilience review.

The rest of the world might be tip-toeing around the big question of China, but this partnership suggests TIM doesn’t have the same reservations.

Dell flies through Q3 with 15% revenue growth

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Dell Technologies has reported its financials for the third quarter of 2018, with few complaining about15% revenue growth to $22.5 billion.

While the company still has a considerable bill to pay off following the $67 billion acquisition of EMC in 2016, the firm has boasted about paying off approximately $1.3 billion of core debt after three months of positive growth across the group.

“The digital transformation of our world is underway, and we are in the early stages of a massive, technology-led investment cycle,” said Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies. “Dell Technologies was created to meet this opportunity head on for our customers and our investors. You can see the proof in our strong growth, in our powerful innovation and in the depth of our customer relationships.”

With total revenues standing at $22.482 billion, most of the numbers are heading in the right direction. The company is still loss-making, though this has narrowed to $356 million for the last three months and $522 million for 2018 so far, improvements of 13% and 78% respectively compared to the same periods of 2017.

Starting with the Infrastructure Solutions Group, revenue for the third quarter was $8.9 billion, a 19% increase, with the servers and networking delivering its sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth. Storage products saw a 6% increase in revenues taking the total up to $3.9 billion.

The Client Solutions Group saw revenues increase by 11% to $10.9 billion, with Dell suggested strong growth in both the commercial and consumer units. Commercial revenue grew 12% to $7.6 billion, and Consumer revenue was up 8% to $3.3 billion, while the firm outperformed the PC industry for total worldwide units.

In the VMWare business unit, revenue for the third quarter was $2.2 billion, up 15%, with operating income of $768 million. This is one area where the Dell management team feel some of the biggest benefits of the EMC acquisition are being felt, with the dreaded ‘synergies’ tag emerging. However, it’s the external AWS partnership which seems to be claiming the majority of the plaudits.

“Overall, I think yesterday’s announcement at re:Invent just reinforced the momentum that we have in the partnership with Amazon,” said Patrick Gelsinger, CEO of VMWare. “And clearly, the VMware Cloud on AWS, we continue to see great customer uptake for that. We reinforce the expansion of that with the Relational Database Service, the RDS announcement that we did at VMworld and yesterday’s Outposts announcement just puts another pillar in that relationship. So now I’d say, we’re on Chapter 3 of the partnership. And overall, we just can see the continued momentum.”

Dell Technologies is not a company which get a huge amount of press inches nowadays, though trends are certainly heading in the right direction here.

Red Hat gives thanks for Turkcell virtualization win

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Turkish operator Turkcell has launched a virtualization platform called Unified Telco Cloud that’s based on Red Hat’s OpenStack Platform.

As the name implies this new platform is all about centralising all its services onto a single virtualized infrastructure. This NFVi then allows east selection and implementation of virtual network functions, or so the story goes. Examples of operators going all-in on this stuff are still sufficiently rare for this to be noteworthy.

As a consequence this deal win is also a big deal for Red Hat, which has invested heavily in attacking the telco virtualization market from an open source direction, as is its wont. Red Hat OpenStack Platform is its carrier-grade distribution of the open source hybrid cloud platform. Turkcell is also using Red Hat Ceph Storage, a software-defined storage technology designed for this sort of thing.

“Our goal is to remake Turkcell as a digital services provider, and our business ambitions are global,” said Gediz Sezgin, CTO of Turkcell. “While planning for upcoming 5G and edge computing evolution in our network, we need to increase vendor independence and horizontal scalability to help maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of our CAPEX investment.

“With the Unified Telco Cloud, we want to lower the barrier to entry of our own network to make it a breeding ground for innovation and competition. In parallel, we want to unify infrastructure and decrease operational costs. Red Hat seemed a natural choice of partner given its leadership in the OpenStack community, its interoperability and collaboration with the vendor ecosystem and its business transformation work with other operators.”

Another key partner for Turkcell in this was Affirmed Networks, which specialises in virtualized mobile networks. “We initially selected Affirmed Networks based on their innovation in the area of network transformation and virtualization and their work with some of the world’s largest operators,” said Sezgin.

It’s good to see some of the endlessly hyped promise of NFV actually being put into effect and it will be interesting to see what kind of ROI Turkcell claims to have got from its Unified Telco Cloud. With organisations such as the O-RAN Alliance apparently gathering momentum, open source could be a major theme of this year’s MWC too.


Three UK claims 5G-ready cloud core first ahead of August launch

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Even though it won’t be flicking the 5G switch until next month, Three UK has decided to bang on about its new virtualized core once more.

We first heard about this whizzy new core, that has been built in partnership with Nokia, back in February. At the time we assumed that would be the last we’d hear about it until the formal launch of Three UK’s 5G network, but Three seems to think we need just one more teaser first.

So, once more for those at the back, this is all about actually using this virtualization tech we’ve been hearing about for so long to make a secure, scalable, flexible core that is capable of fully delivering the 5G dream. It will be housed in 20 dedicated data centres scattered around the country to deliver edge computing benefits such as lower latency. This is also a good case study for Nokia to show how good it is at this sort of thing.

“Our new core network is part of a series of connected investments, totalling £2 billion, that will provide a significant step change in our customers’ experience,” said Dave Dyson CEO of Three UK. “UK consumers have an insatiable appetite for data as well as an expectation of high reliability.  We are well positioned to deliver both as we prepare for the launch of the UK’s fastest 5G network.”

“This is an exciting time for both Nokia and Three UK, as together we work towards the future of telecommunications networks,” said Bhaskar Gorti, President of Nokia Software. “This project delivers a joint vision that has been forged from the catalyst of Three’s strategy for complete business transformation. The project will deliver a flexible 5G core network, enabling the next generation of mobile services and cementing Three UK as a true leader of 5G in the UK.”

Three was careful to give shout-outs to some of its other partners in this project, which include Affirmed Networks for traffic management, Mavenir for messaging and Exfo, Mycom and BMC for OSS. Not only will this core network be central to Three UK’s strategy for the next decade, it will also provide a good live test of the kinds of technology everyone will be reliant upon before long. No pressure then, see you in August.

Nvidia takes 5G to the edge with help from Ericsson and Red Hat

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Graphics chip maker Nvidia has unveiled its EGX Edge Supercomputing Platform that is designed to boost 5G, IoT and AI processing at the edge of the network

Nvidia has long been the market leader in GPUs (graphics processing units), which has enabled it to get a strong position in supercomputing, where the parallel processing qualities of GPUs come in especially handy. This EGX initiative seems to be Nvidia’s attempt to translate that position from datacentres to the edge computing.

“We’ve entered a new era, where billions of always-on IoT sensors will be connected by 5G and processed by AI,” said Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO. “Its foundation requires a new class of highly secure, networked computers operated with ease from far away. We’ve created the Nvidia EGX Edge Supercomputing Platform for this world, where computing moves beyond personal and beyond the cloud to operate at planetary scale.”

There seems to be a fair bit of support for this new platform, with a bunch of companies and even a couple of US cities saying they’re already involved. “Samsung has been an early adopter of both GPU computing and AI from the beginning,” said Charlie Bae, EVP of foundry sales and marketing at Samsung Electronics. “NVIDIA’s EGX platform helps us to extend these manufacturing and design applications smoothly onto our factory floors.”

“At Walmart, we’re using AI to define the future of retail and re-think how technology can further enhance how we operate our stores,” said Mike Hanrahan, CEO of Walmart Intelligent Retail Lab. “With NVIDIA’s EGX edge computing platform, Walmart’s Intelligent Retail Lab is able to bring real-time AI compute to our store, automate processes and free up our associates to create a better and more convenient shopping experience for our customers.”

On the mobile side Ericsson is getting involved to build virtualized 5G RANs on GPUs. As you would expect the reason is all about being able to introduce new functions and services more easily and flexibly. More specifically Ericsson hopes the platform will make virtualizing the complete RAN solution cheaper and easier.

“5G is set to turbocharge the intelligent edge revolution,” said Huang. “Fusing 5G, supercomputing, and AI has enabled us to create a revolutionary communications platform supporting, someday, trillions of always-on, AI-enabled smart devices. Combining our world-leading capabilities, Nvidia and Ericsson are helping to invent this exciting future.”

On the software side a key partner for all this virtualized 5G fun will be Red Hat, which is getting its OpenShift Kubernetes container platform involved. It will combine with Nvidia’s own Aerial software developer kit to help operators to make the kind of software-defined RAN tech that can run on EGX.

“The industry is ramping 5G and the ‘smart everything’ revolution is beginning,” said Huang. “Billions of sensors and devices will be sprinkled all over the world enabling new applications and services. We’re working with Red Hat to build a cloud-native, massively scalable, high-performance GPU computing infrastructure for this new 5G world. Powered by the Nvidia EGX Edge Supercomputing Platform, a new wave of applications will emerge, just as with the smartphone revolution.”

Things seemed to have gone a bit quiet on the virtualization front, with NFV, SDN, etc having apparently entered the trough of disillusionment. Nvidia is a substantial cloud player these days, however, and judging by the level of support this new initiative has, EGX could a key factor in moving the telecoms cloud onto the slope of enlightenment.

Nokia and Microsoft bundle their cloud offerings

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A strategic collaboration between Nokia and Microsoft is banking on companies wanting to buy their cloud hardware and software together.

Here’s the official pitch: “By bringing together Microsoft cloud solutions and Nokia’s expertise in mission-critical networking, the companies are uniquely positioned to help enterprises and communications service providers transform their businesses.” This seems to be mainly about things like private networks, SD-WAN and private cloud, but specific commercial use-cases are thin on the ground at this stage.

“We are thrilled to unite Nokia’s mission-critical networks with Microsoft’s cloud solutions,” said Kathrin Buvac, President of Nokia Enterprise and Chief Strategy Officer. “Together, we will accelerate the digital transformation journey towards Industry 4.0, driving economic growth and productivity for both enterprises and service providers.”

“Bringing together Microsoft’s expertise in intelligent cloud solutions and Nokia’s strength in building business and mission-critical networks will unlock new connectivity and automation scenarios,” said Jason Zander, EVP of Microsoft Azure. “We’re excited about the opportunities this will create for our joint customers across industries.”

This initiative is more than just good PowerPoint and canned quote, however, with BT announced as its first paying punter. Apparently it’s already offering a managed service that integrates Microsoft Azure cloud and Nokia SD-WAN stuff. Specifically this means Azure vWAN and Nuage SD-WAN 2.0.

Apart from that the joint announcement mainly just bangs on about how great both companies are at this sort of thing – in other words a thinly-veiled sales pitch. The market will decide if it needs this kind of complete virtual WAN package and whether or not Nokia and Microsoft are the best companies to provide it. But there’s no denying BT is a strong first customer win.

Microsoft buys into NFV with Affirmed Networks acquisition

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US software giant Microsoft has made one its most aggressive moves into the telecoms sector with the acquisition of virtualization specialist Affirmed Networks.

Affirmed is all about virtualized mobile network solutions and Microsoft seems to have decided it’s time it got more involved in that sort of things too. It’s already a datacentre and cloud giant, of course, so as telecoms increasingly moves in that direction it make perfect strategic sense for Microsoft to do so too.

“At Microsoft, we intend to empower the telecommunications industry as it continues its move to 5G and support both network equipment manufacturers and operators in their efforts to find solutions that are faster, easier and cost effective,” blogged Yousef Khalidi Corporate Vice President of Azure Networking at Microsoft.

“Today, I am pleased to announce that we have signed a definitive agreement to acquire Affirmed Networks. Affirmed Networks’ fully virtualized, cloud-native mobile network solutions enable operators to simplify network operations, reduce costs and rapidly create and launch new revenue-generating services.

“This acquisition will allow us to evolve our work with the telecommunications industry, building on our secure and trusted cloud platform for operators. With Affirmed Networks, we will be able to offer new and innovative solutions tailored to the unique needs of operators, including managing their network workloads in the cloud.”

We don’t know what Microsoft paid because Affirmed is private, but it will be in the hundreds of millions. If traditional telecoms vendors aren’t alarmed by this acquisition then they should be. It seems like a classic example of the IT sector taking advantage of the new opportunities presented by NFV and virtualization in general and if Microsoft starts sniffing around things like OpenRAN then outright panic would seem appropriate.

Microsoft doubles down on the telco cloud with Metaswitch acquisition

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Don’t say you weren’t warned, telecoms industry. The tech big guns are trained on your home turf and they’re not afraid to splash the cash.

Less than two months ago Microsoft bought into NFV by acquiring Affirmed Networks. Now it has doubled-down on that investment with the acquisition of Metaswitch Networks, which is also all about the virtual network, for an undisclosed sum.

“This announcement builds on our recent acquisition of Affirmed Networks, which closed on April 23, 2020,” explained the Microsoft blog on the matter. “Metaswitch’s complementary portfolio of ultra-high-performance, cloud-native communications software will expand our range of offerings available for the telecommunications industry. Microsoft intends to leverage the talent and technology of these two organizations, extending the Azure platform to both deploy and grow these capabilities at scale in a way that is secure, efficient and creates a sustainable ecosystem.

“As the industry moves to 5G, operators will have opportunities to advance the virtualization of their core networks and move forward on a path to an increasingly cloud-native future. Microsoft will continue to meet customers where they are, working together with the industry as operators and network equipment providers evolve their own operations.”

So it seems clear that Microsoft is pretty serious about the telco cloud. It already has some of the best cloud infrastructure in the world and it’s rapidly adding the software required to make it telecoms-friendly. Metaswitch is small, so this seems to be as much about talent as products. Either way Microsoft is rapidly building a telco cloud capability that specialist vendors can only dream about.

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