Nordic operator Telenor Group has partnered with Enea to deploy the latter’s cloud-native data management system in the operator’s multi-vendor Standalone (SA) 5G core initiative.
Under the terms of the deal, Enea provided Telenor with its cloud-native 5G data management solutions including its Unified Data Manager (UDM) that can support up to 10 billion data entries at a rate of 1 to 500,000 transactions per second. Enea’s solution also delivers automated end-to-end encrypted communications from the core to the edge.
Telenor also utilized Enea’s User Data Repository (UDR) and Authentication Server Function (AUSF) to provide 5G data management capabilities.
“By creating a multi-vendor environment, operators and enterprises can foster innovation, reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) and can cut time to market for new services,” said Patrick Waldemar, VP of Telenor Research.
Indranil Chatterjee, Chief Customer Officer at Enea added: “The initiative provides a blueprint for both operators and enterprises to create a cloud native, best-of-breed 5G environment that, by its multi-vendor nature, eliminates vendor lock-in.”
Telenor is currently involved in an initiative to create a diverse multi-vendor 5G standalone (SA) solution, that includes Proof of Concept (PoC) of a fully secure cloud-native 5G Core for network slicing. The Nordic carrier said that the solution is ready for deployment and can support both high performance telecom and enterprise applications.
Telenor and Enea said the system is already being trialled by the Norwegian armed forces and is “a pioneering use case of network slicing in action.”
Sue Rudd, director of networks and service platforms at Strategy Analytics, said the collaboration between Telenor and Enea demonstrates the service flexibility SA 5G can offer with end-to-end network slicing.
Telenor’s multi-vendor environment consists of solutions from Oracle, Casa Systems, Enea and Kaloom, all running on Red Hat Openshift.
“The main component of 5G SA is the 5G mobile core, the ‘brain’ of the 5G system. Unfortunately, most 5G core deployments are still single vendor dependent, with strong dependencies on that vendor’s underlying proprietary architecture. This single-vendor dependency can be a killer for innovation. It restricts open collaboration from the broader 5G ecosystem of companies developing new technology, use cases, and services that the market expects,” Waldemar had previously said.
Telenor is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company with operations in Scandinavia and Asia. At the end of 2019, Telenor held controlling interests in mobile operations in Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan.
.”
