Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: CityFibre trumpets sales progress; Jolla restructures; WeDo throws a SHAPE.
Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) and Telefónica are to expand their existing NFV development relationship following the successful testing of the vendor's Virtualized Service Router (VSR) system, which delivered "outstanding performance" in the operator's test lab, according to an official comment attributed to Telefónica's Global CTO, Enrique Blanco. The VSR, which was tested using the OpenMANO NFV orchestration stack that Telefónica shared with the industry earlier this year, will now get a trial run in Telefónica's live network. In addition, the operator plans to perform further tests related to the virtualization of mobile network functions and plans to put AlcaLu's virtualized evolved packet core (EPC), virtualized Session Border Controller (SBC) and vCPE through their paces. It will also look at whether the vendor's Motive OSS tools are applicable to a virtualized environment. The two companies have been working on NFV since early 2014, when the operator opted to use AlcaLu's CloudBand NFV infrastructure to develop its UNICA virtualization plans. Earlier this year, Telefónica announced that it had chosen Alcatel-Lucent partner HP to be its lead technology supplier and systems integrator for the multivendor UNICA initiative. (See Telefónica, Alcatel-Lucent Strengthen NFV Ties, Telefónica Taps HP for Unica NFV, Telefónica Releases OpenMANO NFV Orchestration Stack and Alcatel-Lucent Joins Virtual Router Race.)
The UK's CityFibre claims to have enjoyed a record month in June for new sales in York, one of several cities in which it has deployed a fiber-based gigabit network. In a statement, CityFibre said it had signed contracts covering 70 new connections for a total value of £527,000 (US$812,265), taking the total value of contracts signed in York to £3.4 million ($5.24 million). "We started out under the York anchor contract with just 105 connected sites, and this latest set of connections will take us to 348 across the city, or roughly three connections per kilometer of network," said Greg Mesch, CityFibre's CEO. (See CityFibre Flags Record Sales Month on York Network and CityFibre Aims for BT's Wholesale Business.)
Jolla , the Finnish mobile phone and tablet maker that was created by former employees of Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK)'s device business, is to restructure, creating a separate company on the devices side and leaving the core company, Jolla Ltd., to concentrate on the development of its Sailfish operating system. (See Jolla Unveils Tablet Plans, Euronews: Jolla Claims a Sailfish Sellout and Euronews: Jolla Unveils First Smartphone.)
Still on a Finnish tilt, it seems the home of Nokia and Jolla still leads the way in terms of mobile broadband subscriptions, with 132 such subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, according to YLE. The statistics were produced by the World Economic Forum, which compared the mobile broadband take-up in different OECD countries.
Portuguese revenue assurance specialist WeDo Technologies has launched SHAPE Telecom, a software system designed to help communications service providers (CSPs) identify the costs and profitability associated with customers, services and plans/campaigns. WeDo says the systems collects and analyzes customer data to provide CSP teams with insight into five defined metrics: Customer Profitability; Customer Optimization; Churn; Social Value; and Monetisation. The company joins the growing list of service provider IT (SPIT) vendors that have developed customer and business analytics and intelligence systems designed to give CSPs clearer insight into the impact of their business decisions and help them develop and modify their customer and service strategies. (See WeDo Throws a Customer Analytics SHAPE, Procera Unveils QoE ScoreCard and Astellia Highlights Customer Care Disconnect.)
BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA) has landed a six-year global communications and network contract with Zurich Insurance Group. The deal covers Internet connectivity and IP telephony, among other services.
— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading
