Cloud migration fuels Telefonica’s open-standard platform, future 5G and IoT growth
Telefonica España and Oracle announced a new multi-year partnership this week that seeks to aid the carrier’s pivot to 5G and IoT. Telefonica is already an Oracle Database customer, but the new collaboration sees the companies migrate Telefonica’s database systems to Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer.
“Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer is an on-premises deployment option of Oracle Exadata Cloud Service that is delivered as a managed cloud service in Telefonica’s own data centers, enabling Telefonica to consolidate mission-critical systems in a single platform while complying with data residency regulations, meeting latency requirements and helping to significantly reduce operational costs,” said Oracle in a statement.
The carrier’s goal is to consolidate the siloed technology infrastructure unpinning its global communications network into a shared, open-standard platform that supports future growth for 5G, IoT and emerging digital services.
Oracle said the migration to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will accelerate Telefonica’s plans to roll out new 5G services. It’s a critical step to help Telefonica prepare to add features like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), at scale to meet market demand.
Telefonica’s 5G efforts continue in multiple directions. In July it was among vendors who secured key frequencies in a $1.3 billion 700 MHz spectrum auction held by the Spanish government. The company spent 350 million euros on 2×10 megahertz blocks, which will be paid in a single installment, in addition to a licensing fee of 15.5 million euros payable each year. The operator said it would use the new frequencies to expand its 5G footprint and offer better coverage, including indoors.
Telefonica recently announced a partnership with IBM to develop UNICA Next, its 5G core network platform. The new 5G core will be built using IBM Cloud Pak for network automation, Red Hat OpenShift and Juniper Networks Apstra and QFX technology.
Meanwhile, Telefonica has picked Nokia and Ericsson to help build out its 5G standalone (SA) network in Spain.
