Hey Mobile Operators: “It’s Time to Network Like the Big Guys, Innovate Like a Startup”

Here we go, Mobile World Congress is fast approaching with about 100,000 attendees descending on Barcelona next week. The big focus this year is said to be around 5G, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and virtualization.

So on those themes Cisco recently hosted a Cisco Knowledge Network Session with Heavy Reading’s Senior Analyst Gabriel Brown on Virtualized Packet Core (VPC). I know, I know Cisco has been driving VPC/NFV/SDN for some time but this time we wanted to focus on Tier 2 & 3 mobile operators, as the big mobile operators have been testing for about 12 – 18 months. We had hundreds of customers attend the session, and to our surprise many larger Mobile Operators attended the session, along with supplying their feedback.

The main research outcomes found by the Heavy Reading Study for the drivers for VPC were:

Capacity Relief / Cap & Grow of physical Packet Core

Packet Core Refresh / Replacement

Vendor Diversity

New Services – IoT

Prepare for 5G

Advantages of VPC for Tier 2 & 3 Operators
For smaller operators, they can benefit from massive sunk investment in technology development made by large Tier 1 operators and their vendors in VPC. Smaller operators can also be much more agile and seize opportunities more quickly than Tier 1s even if their total budgetary constraint is greater.

Use Cases Covered in the study:

MVNO & Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE)

Strong MVNO market dynamics; e.g., Google, Cable MSOs, EU consolidation

Enterprise Private Virtual Network Operator (PVNO)

Opportunity to combine mobile VPN with enterprise cloud applications

IoT/M2M

Wide-area IoT services on dedicated core network; optimized traffic profile

Special Events & Venues

Multi-operator, shared small-cell networks at major venue

Backed by global Tier 1 operators, today’s state-of-the-art virtual EPC technology offers performance close enough to the classic hardware-based model. A software-based mobile core levels the playing field with bigger operators because it puts brand-name EPC products and features within reach of smaller operators, and, because hardware dependencies are irrelevant, feature updates in new software releases are more accessible and faster to deploy.

Cisco’s Virtual EPC-in-a-Box: Server Based

COTS-based Mobile Packet Core

Includes P-GW, S-GW, GGSN, SGSN, MME

Supports integrated inline SGi-LAN services

Scales to 50 Gbit/s and 5 million SAUs in 12 RU

Scales down to smaller 6 RU system

Runs on RedHat OS & KVM hypervisor

Not (yet) an orchestrated NFV solution

Learn more about Cisco’s VPC.

Read the full VPC report from Light Reading.

Watch the on demand webinar and download the presentation.