I've followed the application of virtualization and SDN for some time, and it looks like this is one of the more significant quantum leaps in mobile infrastructure. ETSI released a Network Function Virtualization whitepaper a few weeks ago, and this market is poised to explode...good for these guys not being afraid to innovate in the face of the encumbent vendors.
The mobile core (and the mobile network in general) is ripe for innovation.. a few things are converging to drive this. Customer "pull" is clear in initiatives like the mobile carrier driven Network Functions Virtualization initiative: carriers want to see the economic benefits which come from employing commodity hardware and also see virtualization as a means to provide a more flexible approach to managing fast-growing and unpredictable traffic loads across their networks. Finally the software technology is maturing as seen from this successful trial, and standard hardware platforms which have the required performance are now available. It is curious however that the innovation and market traction is coming from such a small early-stage company like Connectem rather than the big players in the market!!
It's about time that we saw scalable solutions for the PDC using virtualisation technology. Increasingly we have seen virtualisation being used for hosted data centre Enterprise solutions, and with today's generation of high-performance, fault-tolerant solutions we are finally in an age where the packet data core can also benefit from this technology. The MNOs have been hostage to the incumbent vendors' point solutions for too long, and with no incentive to disrupt the status quo, it falls on new entrant innovators to disrupt the marketplace.
I'll be very interested to see how the Connectem VCM solution performs in real-world operator trials. Early days yet, but this is shaping up to be an exciting time in mobile network evolution.
Connectem's VCM concept sounds quite similar to Nokia Siemens' Liquid Core. The difference, as I see it, is that Connectem's packet core software is meant to run on any commercial, off-the-shelf hardware of an operator's choosing.
It's a compelling proposition and I'm interested to see what Optus, and other operators, could do with it.
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