Comment (6)Alcatel-Lucent has struck a marquee carrier virtualization partnership with South Korea's national operator, KT Corp. (See Alcatel-Lucent, KT Collaborate on NFV.)
The two companies have signed a "technical collaboration agreement" that will involve the development of NFV capabilities for KT's "Giga" Network, including a proof of concept, based on the vendor's CloudBand NFV platform, its virtual Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and the Virtualized Services Platform (VSP) for SDN that has been developed by AlcaLu subsidiary Nuage Networks.
KT's aim is to become more innovative and efficient, as well as "accelerate product deployment and service creation flexibility," as it develops and builds out what it calls its Giga Network, the operator's next-generation infrastructure. "We expect this collaboration will help us create converged services for Gigatopia era and develop new revenue generation models," as well as reduce costs, noted HongBeom Jeon, head of KT's Technology Infra Laboratory Center, in the official announcement released by the two companies.
KT's Gigatopia strategy involves: building a high-speed, integrated wired/wireless next-gen network that is ready for all manner of future media and data transport and geared up for the Internet of Things (IoT); prioritizing customer service and experience and developing a differentiated set of cloud-based services and applications to meet customers' needs; and expanding into multiple ICT markets, including the smart energy, healthcare, security and smart city sectors.
Why this matters
South Korea is one of the most advanced telecoms markets in the world and, along with the likes of Japan and Sweden, is always at the forefront of next-gen networking and services developments. As a result, developments in those markets are closely watched by the rest of the industry: That KT is teaming up with Alcatel-Lucent on its NFV and SDN R&D is something of a coup for the vendor.
Alcatel-Lucent has been investing significant time, effort and resources into both SDN, through Nuage, and NFV, based on its CloudBand platform, for years, and those efforts are now at the heart of the vendor's new strategy. Informal feedback suggests that CloudBand in particular is at the heart of many carrier projects -- the KT engagement is further evidence that AlcaLu is one of the leaders in developing virtualization capabilities for telcos.
For more on this topic see:
- Let's Federate Our NFV Labs – Telefónica
- AlcaLu: Going With the Flow
- How Alcatel-Lucent Set a Telco Cloud Example
- Alcatel-Lucent Unveils NFV Suite
- Lifting the Cloud Over SDN
- Ericsson-LG, SKT Team on 5G, NFV R&D
- Carriers Peer Into Virtual World
— Ray Le Maistre, 
, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading
