Nokia announced that it is conducting a live trial in China Unicom's commercial network using the Nokia Virtualized Services Router (VSR) and involving more than 5,000 residential subscribers, designed to enable China Unicom to simplify and accelerate the delivery of broadband utilising a new flexible network based on virtualised network functions (VNFs).
The initial trial with China Unicom is being carried out in the Chinese province of Shandong, with plans to expand to the other parts of the country over the next two years as it moves to the next phase, which will include delivery of IPTV services.
Nokia noted that China Unicom is adopting software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV) to enhance efficiency and increase flexibility, openness and scalability as it evolves to a cloud-ready network. The trial of the Nokia VSR platform is designed to demonstrate improved operational efficiency and faster creation and delivery of new services.
The China Unicom trial involves using the VSR solution as a next-generation, virtualised broadband network gateway (BNG) to support residential subscriber management functions and advanced service capabilities. As part of its initiative to transform its metro service edge, China Unicom plans to migrate BNG services to the virtualised platform to gain the benefits of a cloud environment.
The trial specifically includes Nokia's field-proven VSR designed for x86 server environments, with the vBNG functionality based on the Nokia Service Router Operating System (SR OS). Nokia VSR is designed to deliver a range of BNG service functions for an enhanced end-user experience, as well as providing high throughput. For the trial Nokia's VSR is also being used to deliver functions, such as network address translation (NAT) to facilitate the migration to IPv6.
http://www.nokia.com/en_int/news/releases
- In September last year, Nokia announced the expansion of its partnership with China Unicom covering the supply of its high-capacity core router, the 7950 Extensible Routing System (XRS). Nokia stated that China Unicom had initially deployed the 7950 XRS into metro networks in six provinces - Beijing, Shandong, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai - and under the latest agreement planned to deploy it in an additional four provinces, namely Heilongjiang, Henan, Zhejiang and Hunan, to improve services for fixed and mobile broadband subscribers.
