LONDON -- NEC Corporation (TSE: NEC 6701) and NetCracker Technology announced today that they have successfully completed a proof of concept (PoC) for their virtualized customer-premises equipment (vCPE) solution at Portugal Telecom. The PoC took place in March 2015 and validated new revenue opportunities for vCPE in residential markets.

Portugal Telecom is the largest telecommunications service provider in Portugal, providing fixed, mobile, multimedia, data and enterprise services across the country. The PoC demonstrated and validated the NEC/NetCracker vCPE solution’s ability to migrate IPv4 and IPv6 routing, address assignment and translation and other IP networking functions from end-user home gateways to Portugal Telecom’s data center. By implementing the vCPE solution, Portugal Telecom will be able to accelerate and simplify the integration and distribution of new consumer services as well as reduce the cost of provisioning and maintaining those offerings.

This PoC showcased several highly unique on-demand service capabilities that the vCPE solution can potentially provide, including the ability to let consumers customize and activate advanced service features such as parental controls and device-specific usage controls through an easy-to-use self-service portal. The NEC/NetCracker vCPE solution also enables next-generation Internet connectivity without requiring consumers or Portugal Telecom technicians to implement highly complex and sophisticated devices on site.

By implementing the vCPE solution, Portugal Telecom can extend advanced service features over any broadband access medium, ensuring consistency and personalization of the customer experience regardless of the user’s location. Portugal Telecom will also be able to accelerate time-to-market and reduce provisioning and maintenance costs by converting the HGW into a simple Layer 2 bridge and minimizing complex hardware installations and troubleshooting processes.

“We are extremely pleased with the positive results of this PoC. In addition to current services, this solution enables new services to be launched and configured for customers much faster and more efficiently, leading to significant cost reductions,” said Jaime Serrano, President at NEC Portugal Telecommunicacoes e Sistemas. “Moreover, the need for technicians to visit customers’ homes is clearly reduced, also resulting in lower costs.”

“As virtualized solutions gain momentum among leading operators, it is important to bring vCPE and other technologies out of the lab and into operationalized deployments,” said Frank DeTraglia, Chief Customer Officer at NetCracker. “NEC and NetCracker have a long and successful track record in helping communications service providers reduce the risk of operationalizing the innovations in network and IT.”

NEC Corp. (Tokyo: 6701)

Netcracker Technology Corp.