During the Global MBB Forum 2023 themed "Bringing 5.5G into Reality" that ran from October 10 to 11 in Dubai, GSMA, SAMENA, and Huawei jointly convened the 4th Telco Cloud-Native TechTalk. At the TechTalk, George Gao, President of Huawei Cloud Core Network Product Line, delivered a speech, in which he called on all the industry players to work together to build the next-generation telecom infrastructure, embracing the next golden decade of NFV and advancing into an intelligent world.
George Gao, President of Huawei Cloud Core Network Product Line, delivering his speech
Promoting Sustainable Development of the NFV Industry
Thanks to the Cloud Native based telco infrastructure, 5G development is accelerating, with a flurry of innovative services emerging one after another. As the cornerstone for the digital era, Telco Cloud-Native is the key to enabling telecom networks to deliver high stability and reliability, as well as augmenting the level of intelligent and autonomous O&M, paving the way for 5.5G and embracing the intelligent world.
Telco Cloud-Native TechTalk is the only dialogue platform in the industry discussing the hottest topics surrounding telco cloud. Following on from the success of the three previous TechTalks held in France, China and Denmark, this year's TechTalk brought together the industry's top luminaries and best minds. Together, players from all walks of the industry celebrated the 10th anniversary of NFV and discussed the technology evolution of telco cloud, opening up more possibilities of the intelligent and autonomous networks and promoting the sustainable development of the industry.
The Value of Telco Cloud-Native Has Been Proven Through Ten-Year NFV Development
A decade ago, ETSI and world-leading operators released an NFV white paper, marking the debut of the telco cloud age and setting us on an NFV journey. Looking back over this journey, we saw a road full of twists and turns, and we also noticed that telco cloud's value was getting clearer and clearer along the way and finally stood out: it disruptively reshaped the telecom networks and pushed the development of telecommunications onto a fast track.
However, this development track could not have been made possible without the concerted collaboration of all the industry players. Operators, especially those trailblazers in the Middle East, have built up ultra-large telco cloud networks around the world, injecting momentum into 5G development and extending their 5G business scope to new fields such as B2B and B2H.
Standard organizations, such as ETSI, as well as industry organizations, with GSMA and SAMENA as representatives, have never stopped refining the NFV standards or promoting the innovation of related technologies.
Huawei, as a major NFV participant and contributor, keeps customers' requirements in mind, invests heavily in R&D, and highly values product innovation. Sticking to these requirements, Huawei will continue helping operators build highly reliable networks, develop new services, and achieve steady business growth.
Embracing the Next Golden Decade of NFV and Advancing Towards an Intelligent World
As the commercial use of 5G continues to scale up around the world, operators have shifted their focus on 5G development from network construction to operations. At this critical juncture, three key challenges must be addressed to better develop NFV:
First, as cloud-based networks are extremely complex, manual intervention is still a must in many operation scenarios. Therefore, a simplified automatic O&M architecture compliant with ETSI standards is urgently required.
Second, to help operators better develop 5G services, shorten their TTM, while also protecting their previous investment, transitioning the existing NFV networks to container-based telco cloud is the best choice.
Third, the technology silos among industry players must be dismantled, and the strengths of the global NFV standards need to be better leveraged.
Apart from the above challenges, we have also noticed a clear trend where the 5G Core is evolving towards a 5.5G Intelligent Core. Powered by intelligence, the core network will give birth to more and more innovative services, such as New Calling, and create tremendous business opportunities, not just in B2C, but also in B2B and even Network as a Service (NaaS). This, in turn, requires NFV to have broader connotations and adaptive technologies, such as intent-based, declarative management and higher-level intelligence, so as to enhance the automation of telecom networks and advance us into the next golden decade of NFV.
To achieve this, all the industry partners need to work even closer. This year's TechTalk presents valuable references for NFV studies and practices in the future. On top of this, let's think to grow, embrace the next decade of NFV, and shape the future with cloud-based technologies.