Telco Cloud Newsletter | 17th June 2020

Greetings,

Are hyperscale cloud players attractive telco partners, or are they going after the connectivity business? The industry is awash with questions. We look at some of this below – as well companies to watch. Meanwhile, we're seeing several networking technologies moving along the maturity curve. Our data shows that NFV is now mainstream. Technologies that were previously just hype (Open RAN, cloud native cores) are now being deployed for real. An exciting time to be involved with telco cloud! Let me know what you think. Regards, Matt Pooley, Telco Cloud Practice Lead

Telco cloud in the news: recent highlights

More hyperscaler telco action... Last month I wrote about the buzz surrounding Microsoft's acquisition of telco vendors Affirmed and Metaswitch. This month, cloud rivals Google are making noises too, announcing a new partnership with Telefónica in Spain as part of their telco industry strategy .

Google has been keen to emphasise its role as a partner alongside other vendors ( Amdocs , Netcracker ) and the telcos themselves ( AT&T , Telecom Italia, T-Systems, and now Telefónica). Will this more collaborative approach help them to gain a headstart over Amazon Web Services, the cloud market leader but arguably a bit behind in the telco space? Let me know what you think!

... but new clouds are coming... A bunch of companies including Deustche Telekom have launched Gaia-X , a decentralised Euro cloud, intended as an alternative ( not competitior ) to the hyperscalers. In TelecomTV I acknowledge the short-term demand for localised cloud, but also question whether this approach will pay off in the long-term.

... and cloud native is ramping up Cloud native network tech is finally being deployed (yes, not just hype), while old-school NFV is going mainstream . In particular, next month, we expect to hear more about working deployments of 5G cores (e.g. what came out this week about NEC/Rakuten ).

As always, this is just a subset of what's going on right now - read more on our hub !

Telco cloud research: latest from STL Partners

NFV Deployment Tracker: Updated June 2020   The latest update of our database of commercial deployments of NFV and SDN by leading telcos worldwide. The tracker covers only verified production deployments of NFV and SDN powering live services, where we can be confident that the data on the VNFs and IT components involved is accurate. The latest update, released in June 2020, contains details on 689 NFV/SDN deployments made up of around 1,400 sub-components.

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End-to-end network automation: Why and how to do it? True E2E automation has not yet been achieved, but network automation is a reality now, and one which telcos must master to survive. What steps are telcos taking to implement network automation, what challenges must be overcome and what benefits can be expected?

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Telco cloud articles

15 NFV Solution providers to watch Here at STL Partners, we have been following developments and deployments in the Telco Cloud space for several years. Here we highlight fifteen different companies that offer NFV solutions, broken down into three buckets:  Traditional Network Equipment Providers (NEPs)  Other NFV giants  Start-ups you may not have heard of  See the full list by clicking the button below:

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Our telco cloud hub: recent content

Will open RAN help telcos reduce their physical infrastructure footprint? Open RAN will have serious consequences for the physical distribution of the mobile network. What strategies are operators adopting and how will this affect operations? Read more

Who cares about Telco Cloud? Telco cloud, NFV, SDN... Many dismiss it as over-technical, over-hyped, or just plain boring. Deployments to date haven’t delivered much. Yet it is a fundamental enabler for 5G growth opportunities, so now is the time to get it right. Read more

Latest NFV News & Announcements A selection of what we consider to be some of the most exciting recent developments in NFV & SDN, all of which have real potential to transform the current landscape. Read more

Insights on Virtualisation, NFV & SDN: The current state of telco cloud in the industry   This 24-page document will provide you with a summary of our insights from our virtualisation research and consulting work:   ·        Overview of NFV/SDN deployments worldwide ·        Benefits of telco cloud: state of the industry ·        Deployment approaches: implications and challenges ·        How STL Partners can support you   Just click on the button below to request your free insights pack.

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