Telekom Austria claims Vip mobile NFV trial shows first fully virtualised network stack

Telekom Austria has announced its Serbian subsidiary Vip mobile has demonstrated what it claimed is the world’s first fully virtualised stack in a commercial network. The telco said the trial is part of its overall technology strategy towards network functions virtualisation (NFV).

The technologies in the Vip deployment included virtualised Connectem Evolved Packet Core (vEPC), a virtualised open-source IMS core from Metaswitch, and virtualised VoLTE (voice-over-LTE) from OpenCloud.

Telekom Austria said the implementation follows a series of vEPC, vIMS and vVoLTE trials in Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia last year. But the telco said that while previous trials have focused on virtualising one network function at a time, the Vip mobile deployment is the first where the entire core network production chain of a VoLTE service is virtualised.

“We are more than proud that Vip mobile achieved another successful NFV deployment,” Dejan Kastelic, CTO of Vip mobile said. “Being the youngest mobile operator and challenger in the market, we always seek new opportunities to reshape the innovation landscape both in the local and regional markets. In this way we are directly improving our customers’ experience and expectation by introducing more efficient, cost-effective and energy saving solutions that enable faster time to market and flexible services delivery.

“Our dedication is to be the leader in providing new solutions to customers, vendors and local expert in the community by setting more advanced standards that will bring us closer to advanced European and world markets.”

Guenther Ottendorfer, CTO Telekom Austria Group said: “One of the major topics that will be wildly discussed at Mobile World Congress is network function virtualization. Having already contributed a great deal of perspectives and developments regarding this trend, the Telekom Austria Group is amongst the first movers in the industry with our successful trials.

“NFV is a paradigm shift for the global Telecom industry but also shows that the game the industry is playing is only about to begin, with numerous innovations on the horizon which will further enhance the customer´s experience. NFV has signalled a new optimism within the industry, with the potential of offering huge opportunities to re-engineer and optimize network infrastructure and deliver better service for our customers.”