The Pan-European Cloud

At this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Telekom Austria Group announced that the target of its future network architecture will be a Pan-European cloud. As a progressive operator, the Telekom Austria Group is making NFV a priority and moving towards a cloud-based, software-centric, all-IP network.

Panel Discussion about the Network Architecture of the Future

Within the framework of yesterday's panel discussion on "Network Evolution in Practice", Günther Ottendorfer, CTO Telekom Austria Group, outlined the scenario of the network architecture of the future.

Ottendorfer commented that previous multiple proprietary layers of hardware, operating systems and abstract middleware will converge into a single virtualized stack. This will be running on commercial off-the-shelf data center hardware, a related operating system and corresponding virtualization software.

After having conducted a series of successful trials at our subsidiaries Mobiltel, Vipnet, Vip mobile, Vip operator and A1, we have emerged as a leader in telecoms transformation.

Günther Ottendorfer

CTO Telekom Austria Group

The result of this development is a basic software layer, which, with regard to the relevant network functions running on it ("software runs on software"), will be fully independent from hardware and the geographic location. Günther Ottendorfer refers to it as the "Network Declaration of Independence". Developers will simply need to deal with a set of open programming interfaces without having to know the underlying hardware or take into account the specific geographic location.

The ultimate objective will be to enable fully automated network operations at a future point in time - this will equally apply to service fulfillment, service assurance and life cycle management. Customers, who increasingly demand outstanding performance (in terms of throughput and latency), will be serviced in a decentralized manner. In contrast, cost-effective service provision will be largely centralized with a view to addressing a larger number of customers.

Telekom Austria Group as a "First Mover" in the Transformation Process

"After having conducted a series of successful trials at our subsidiaries Mobiltel, Vipnet, Vip mobile, Vip operator and A1, we have emerged as a leader in telecoms transformation," said Günther Ottendorfer, CTO Telekom Austria Group, commenting on the contribution made by the Group to the NFV topic.

A high-caliber panel of experts from USA (AT&T), China (Huawei) and Italy (Italtel) engaged in a compelling discussion about the paradigm shift currently under way within the telecommunications industry due to NFV. The panelists also discussed the impact that the virtualization of single network components may have not only on telecom operators but also on business partners, vendors, employees and ultimately end-customers moving forward. The discussion also focused on the opportunities arising from network virtualization and on industry expectations in terms of new networks and end-devices.

Motivation of the employees as Key to Success

In addition to these technological innovations, the Telekom Austria Group has also launched a comprehensive employee program aimed at making all staff members more familiar with this future topic, while up-dating them on state-of-the-art developments and providing regular trainings and courses in line with new requirements and the challenges lying ahead. In addition a groupwide NFV Open Door has been offered to all 16.000 employees.

"The success of the transformation will be primarily achieved by the engagement and motivation of our employees. That is the reason why we have started a comprehensive training program", Guenther Ottendorfer concludes.

Notes to the Editor

Network functions virtualization (NFV) marks a major paradigm shift within the telecommunications industry, giving hope for a significant boost in innovation. NFV is in line with the Group's technology strategy. The Telekom Austria Group strives to become a leader in this area with several NFV trials already underway across the Group, emphasizing infrastructure leadership as an important key for differentiation.

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