LF Networking adds global carriers as members

The LF Networking Fund (LFN), which facilitates collaboration and operational excellence across open networking projects, is gaining traction with global telecom service providers. New members include Sprint, KT, KDDI, SK Telecom, Swisscom, and Telecom Italia.

Addiiontal members include AT&T,  Bell Canada, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Comcast, KT, KDDI, Orange, PCCW Global, Reliance Jio, SK Telecom, Turk Telecom, Verizon, Vodafone and others.

THe LF Networkin Fund said telecom service providers are increasingly developing solutions and deploying LFN projects within their networks, with ONAP, OPNFV and ODL  as critical components to enable SDN/NFV, 5G, big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) network services.

"I am delighted to see expanded membership and support from even more of the world's leading telecom service providers," said Arpit Joshipura, general manager of Networking and Orchestration, The Linux Foundation. "As LFN now enables over 65 percent of the global mobile subscribers, we can better see the impact of open source on the networking ecosystem, signaling a broader industry trend toward innovation, harmonization and accelerated deployment."

"As a leading telecom company, we put great importance in network automation that utilizes open source to cope with maintenance and management of both virtualized and existing network complexly," said Yoshiaki Uchida, senior managing executive officer, Director of KDDI. "We are eager to continue to work with the ONAP community to further progress network management for the 5G era."

"5G technology is expected to dynamically provide various high-quality applications and services through virtualization-based open source technology. By joining LFN,  KT will actively participate in the open source ecosystem, which is set to lead standardization and development of next-generation 5G networks," said Dr. Hongbeom Jeon, head of KT Infra Lab. "As a result, we will collectively pioneer the new era of smart and cost-effective 5G platforms."