Swiss tech firm claims NFV first

NAKA Mobile, a telecoms and technology specialist based in Switzerland, has claimed the industry’s first virtualized evolved packet core (vEPC). Utilising Cisco’s NFV services, NAKA claims it will transform its network architecture, expand beyond Switzerland, and provide its mobile Internet services to customers across the world.

According to NAKA, the service is already live and delivering services. It claims the vEPC will enable advanced time-to-market capabilities, while reducing total cost of ownership; a lot of the usual NFV perks on display.

Both companies seem chuffed with the partnership, with Cisco being especially gratified that NAKA chose it to provide early use-case NFV services. “NAKA Mobile is launching the world’s first virtualized packet core mobile Internet services, and Cisco is delighted to support its efforts,” said Mike Iandolo, Cisco’s VP and GM of Mobile Internet Technology. “The Cisco Virtualized Packet Core solution enables NAKA Mobile to deploy the Cisco StarOS software architecture on different hardware platforms.”

Meanwhile, NAKA is no less ecstatic that Cisco’s platform will deliver flexible management of its network.  Daniel Sendin, NAKA’s Chief Operating Officer, was full of praise for the work Cisco has done with the his team. “Cisco is a market leader with solid technology that permits NAKA Mobile the capability to dynamically scale our mobile Internet network capacity,” he said.

“NAKA Mobile chose Cisco because they offered us the platform scalability of a virtualized packet core and the ability to scale. As a result, we can offer different deployment options depending on the size and maturity of the market. The Cisco Virtualized Packet Core also gives us the flexibility to implement solutions spanning 10,000 to millions of users while using the same software over different platforms.”

Discover the latest SDN and NFV goings-on at Carrier Network Virtualization 2014, December 9-11, Palo Alto

It would be interesting to see whether the vEPC launch between NAKA and Cisco fits within the ETSI NFV architectural framework, as a proof of concept (PoC) is currently being conducted by Vodafone, AMD, ARM and Aricent, and was recently demonstrated in Germany.