IN A VIRTUAL WORLD WHAT DEFINES A NETWORK OPERATOR? Cambridge Wireless NFV SIG meeting Simon Tonks 7th May 2015 © PA Knowledge Limited 2015 1 Network Operators Historically Did It All A telecom network involves a lot of Capex  Some intelligent bits Access Control & Signalling  Some ‘dumb’ bits Communication Services Transmission Operating it involves a lot of Opex Interconnects  Staff Routeing  Licences & maintenance Last Mile OSS © PA Knowledge Limited 2015 2 BSS The Traditional ‘Top To Bottom’ Network Operator Model Is Already Breaking Up eTOM (ITU-T M.3050) (M)VNOs hold the customer relationship Strategy, infrastructure & product Operations Marketing & offer management Customer relationship management Service development & management Service management & operations Resource development & management Resource management & operations Supply chain development & management Supplier/partner relationship management Network and service provision are separated Outsourced and Shared RANs © PA Knowledge Limited 2015 3 NFV and SDN Will Cause Further Fragmentation of the Operating Model Virtual Core Network Different companies can operate different layers of the network Orchestration HLR/HSS NFV detaches the network functions from the hardware they run on MME NFV S/P-GW etc. Virtual Machine Management SDN separates routeing into “white box” router hardware and routeing tables Routeing tables SDN RAN Server hardware may be outsourced and shared with other services © PA Knowledge Limited 2015 GRX Hardware 4 Who Controls the Network? Virtual Core Network Managed services can give good benefits of scale, especially for smaller operators Orchestration NFV gives the opportunity for managed services in different layers of the core network VNFaaS HLR/HSS MME  Three ETSI use cases are shown  Can be extended to other parts of the network e.g. RAN, CDN etc. Virtual Machine Management Fragmentation of the value chain is one more sign of the telecom market maturing NFVIaaS Routeing tables  The network operator keeps the intelligent bits, outsources the dumb bits © PA Knowledge Limited 2015 VNPaaS S/P-GW 5 The Core Network Location Can Be Dynamic, including International Imagine… So…  Router hardware in one country, routeing tables generated in another  Who issues the operator licences?  Which data protection/privacy laws apply?  Load balancing between server clusters in different countries  Failover to a different country  Core networks serving more than one country Note - Not all dependant on NFV/SDN © PA Knowledge Limited 2015 6 Back to the Question - What Defines a Network Operator? Not the customer relationship – that’s often a (M)VNO Not the communication services – some bigger MVNOs do that also Not the RAN or Last Mile – they’re often a shared resource Not the core network hardware / OS – that’s often outsourced © PA Knowledge Limited 2015 7 Back to the Question - What Defines a Network Operator? Not the customer relationship – that’s often a (M)VNO Not the communication services – some bigger MVNOs do that also Not the RAN or Last Mile – they’re often a shared resource Not the core network hardware / OS – that’s often outsourced Suggestion – The Network Operator is the entity that determines the signal path  That means the organisation that configures the NFV orchestration (i.e. logical routeing)  Possibly also the SDN routeing tables (i.e. physical routeing) © PA Knowledge Limited 2015 8 Thank you for listening Simon Tonks PA Consulting Group Cambridge Technology Centre Melbourn Herts SG8 6DP 01763 267 353 [email protected] www.paconsulting.com © PA Knowledge Limited 2015 9