SDN, NFV gaining ground with wireless operators
The wireless industry’s move toward virtualization continues to gain steam, if not in actual deployments then at least in hype. Analyst firms following the move are predicting strong growth in the market as wireless carriers look to trim operating expenses, increase network efficiency and gain agility in competing against over-the-top players.
One company that has been in the software-defined networking and network function virtualization space since before those labels were coined is ConteXtream, which offers its Carrier-SDN solution that has reportedly been deployed by tier-one operators. That platform in turn supports NFV for various solutions deployed on carrier networks. RCR Wireless News spoke with Anshu Agarwal, VP of marketing at ConteXtream, about the company’s position in the space as well as how ConteXtream sees the SDN and NFV market evolving in terms of wireless carrier deployments.
Agarwal explained that current deployments of SDN and NFV vary across carriers depending on their aggressiveness in rolling out new services. The push toward deployments has been bolstered by the desire of carriers to roll out new services in order to compete with OTT players, though the main benefit for the move continues to be in network optimization.
Agarwal also touched on the importance of standardization in the SDN space, noting that while there is a need for such a move, it was still a bit early in the game for such standardization to likely occur. ConteXtream, for its part, participates in a number of partnerships looking to provide some shape to the market, including OpenFlow and OpenStack. ConteXtream also recently joined Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand Ecosystem Program, which is an open community for vendors and service providers developing NFV solutions.
Looking ahead, Agarwal said that wireless carriers will continue to probe the SDN and NFV space, working on specific business cases in an attempt to better understand the technology shift. Eventually, such innovation is expected to dig deeper into network operations, with some operators going so far as to virtualize their evolved packet core.
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