In surpassing the capabilities of existing core networks based on unified ATCA platforms and advanced carrier-grade middleware, Huawei has realized a significant technical innovation.
Voice core networks will continue to be used in the future and will gradually change from supporting voice only to enabling multimedia communications. Carriers must therefore focus on ways in which they can minimize their total cost of ownership (TCO) in order to succeed in this increasingly competitive environment. The convergence of IT and CT enables carriers to purchase standard hardware, implement centralized site-maintenance, and shorten their time to market (TTM) for new services. Huawei's new core network solutions separate the hardware from the software so that they can be managed independently. This minimizes TCO for carriers, maximizing their return on investment.
The solution also supports services running on standard commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware that can be shared by different services, network elements, and even vendors, with dynamic resources allocation available on demand.
The key innovation in this solution is the use of carrier grade infrastructure as a service (IaaS) technology based on an IT cloud platform, which keeps telecom services reliable and secure, especially for realtime voice and video, ensuring commercial use for real-time telecom services. The solution also provides cross-platform support to help carriers get the most out of their investment. For example, carriers are able to deploy COTS equipment together with existing ATCA equipment.
Simultaneously, Huawei is making steady progess on the commercial implementation of its core network cloud strategy. In June 2012, Huawei first announced its core network telecom cloud strategy at the Core Business Transformation Forum held in Mexico. Since July 2012, Huawei has cooperated with several world-leading telecom carriers to test core network services running on its cloud platform. Looking to the future, Huawei intends to migrate its whole core network solutions to the cloud platform for commercial use in 2014, including all core network products, such as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), Circuit Switch (CS), and Unified Subscriber Center (USC) solutions.