The Irish Service Provider Information Technology (SPIT) vendor has been developing its policy control platform with NFV-type set-ups and software-defined networking (SDN) architectures in mind for a while, and believes it's ahead of the pack as a result.

It announced Wednesday that it has demonstrated its advanced NFV capabilities with an unidentified Tier 1 operator, claiming that it has successfully demonstrated "linear and scalable policy solutions" at that operator. (See Openet Boasts Virtualization Advances.)

It added: "For several years, Openet has supported virtualized environments for functional nodes, but providing automated elasticity within high performance stateful systems was a more difficult, technical challenge."

And in boasting of its progress, the company has taken a dig at its PCRF rivals. "Openet's head start in virtualization enables us to demonstrate as reality today what others only have as a roadmap."

Others? That would be a clear dig at Amdocs Ltd. and Tekelec, among others. (See MW13: Amdocs Embraces Virtualization and Oracle Snaps Up Tekelec.)

What this tells us is not so much that Openet has a technical advantage over some of its main rivals (which, in some respects, it may) but that there is clearly a scramble among the main PCRF vendors to be seen to be in the vanguard of NFV developments.

And any telco policy server vendor that isn't plowing R&D and marketing dollars and euros into NFV-related efforts right now is already behind the curve.

— Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading