Vienna, 27 June 2014

Within the framework of the LTE World Summit 2014, which was held in Amsterdam for the 10th time in a row, Günther Ottendorfer delivered a keynote speech on the technological opportunities and challenges awaiting the telecommunications industry over the next years.

A high-caliber panel consisting of experts from Germany, the Netherlands and the Near East engaged in a lively discussion about network basic preconditions, the possibilities offered by network function virtualization (NFV) as well as about what customers can expect from new network infrastructures and end-devices moving forward.

Günther Ottendorfer, CTO Telekom Austria Group, said about the summit: "Mobile communication acts as a major catalyst for future technologies and services. The LTE World Summit brings together industry experts to analyze the most important findings and gain deeper insights into new trends and developments. This includes, for instance, the realization that the deployment of network function virtualization (NFV) will bring about a decisive paradigm shift moving forward. This poses unprecedented challenges to network operators but also offers the huge opportunity to completely reengineer network elements. The second key topic for the industry as a whole currently relates to cloud-based automation that enables the transformation of IT systems."

In his keynote, Günther Ottendorfer highlighted the Telekom Austria Group's NFV strategy - mentioning the recent successful trials in Croatia and Bulgaria. Within the framework of a live demonstration, both the Croatian and the Bulgarian subsidiaries carried out a HD video streaming, which was made possible by combining the LTE technology with an EPC (evolved packet core) solution based on NFV. The demonstration showed that going forward customers will be in a position to transport and directly stream their smartphone content via a virtualized cloud-based infrastructure. As a result, customers will no longer need to offload content from their smartphones to their computers. This solution will therefore enhance customer convenience, while at the same time considerably improving data loss protection.

With regard to the next-generation technologies referred to as 5G, Mr. Ottendorfer warned that Europe should not run the risk of lagging behind the rest of the world, as it was the case for the transition to 4G. According to him, 5G has enormous potential moving forward.

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