Orange to Test AT&T's ECOMP

DALLAS -- Global operator Orange plans to test AT&T’s platform for creating and managing a software-defined network. AT&T built this platform, called ECOMP, with a focus on making it accessible to other operators and cloud developers. AT&T has committed to releasing ECOMP as open source software in conjunction with the Linux Foundation.

“ECOMP is a stake in the ground. It’s a declaration that networks of the future will be software-centric, that they’ll be faster, more responsive to customer needs, and more efficient,” said Chris Rice, Senior Vice President - Domain 2.0 Architecture and Design, AT&T. “Orange’s decision, as one of the leading international carriers in the world, is a great endorsement of that approach.”

“The analysis we conducted of ECOMP currently shows it to be highly agile and comprehensive, a testament to the commitment that AT&T has shown to address the key challenges that global service providers all face,” said Alain Maloberti, Senior Vice President Orange Labs Network at Orange. “We jointly believe that a platform like ECOMP needs a strong and dynamic open source community to drive industry adoption, and we will work with AT&T to create a community to develop a reference software platform for automated network orchestration and management. We plan to start experiments with ECOMP firstly in a lab environment, to be followed by a field trial as part of our On-Demand Networks program.”

This supplements AT&T and Orange’s recent announcement that they will collaborate on open source and standardization initiatives to accelerate the standardization of software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) technologies.

Orange is the first telecom company to join AT&T’s ECOMP effort. This helps to validate the software-centric vision AT&T adopted several years ago as a response to skyrocketing demand for network capacity. Data traffic on AT&T’s wireless network grew more than 150,000% between 2007 and 2015.

ECOMP, which stands for Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy, is the software platform AT&T created to power its new network. ECOMP lets service providers quickly add features and drive down operations costs. It gives service providers and businesses anywhere more control of their network services, and enables developers to create new services. Ultimately, consumers benefit because the network better adapts, scales and predicts how to make their connected experiences seamless.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T)

Orange (NYSE: FTE)