Editor’s Note: Welcome to Analyst Angle. We’ve collected a group of the industry’s leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry.
By now you will have heard of mobile virtualization and the potential benefits offered to mobile operators. Virtualization of the mobile network essentially involves separating the software functions from hardware boxes. To over simplify, instead of having a specific box in the evolved packet core or radio access network dedicated to a specific function, network functions are defined in software and implemented on standard hardware. This provides a number of benefits including increased flexibility in how networks are deployed; reduced costs through the use of standard off-the-shelf hardware; and potentially increased performance as the network scales.
Virtualization is nothing new; corporate IT departments have been virtualizing various systems for years. As seems to be usual for the mobile industry, we are taking a little longer to get there, but things are finally starting to move quickly. While not all of the mobile network will be virtualized immediately (or even in the next two years), more and more functions are being deployed using virtualization techniques.
So what is the problem? After all, virtualization has been done before and plenty of companies offer mobile virtualization solutions today.
The issue that appears to be looming is lack of expertise. Mobile networks are tricky to optimize and manage at the best of times and they are certainly more complex than their landline counterparts. Virtualization requires a whole new set of technical skills and approaches. Look at a logical picture of a virtualized network and you will be bombarded with a range of new acronyms and names. Acronym lovers can rejoice.
What is needed are skills that combine a deep understanding of mobile networks and approaches with a technical competence in virtualization. At the CTIA show in September, I moderated a panel discussing issues with mobile virtualization. The lack of technical expertise was highlighted as an issue that the mobile industry will have to address in the next few years.
So if you are in the mobile industry and are not familiar with virtualization techniques, network function virtualization, virtual network functions, orchestration, software-defined networking and the split between hardware and software network implementations, now is the time to start brushing up. Even if your job is not directly tied to mobile networks today, in a couple of years the virtualization acronyms and terms – NFV, VFN, SDN – will be as common as RAN and EPC are today. Virtualization fundamentally changes how mobile networks are built and managed, and the workforce supporting these networks must change as well.
Iain Gillott, the founder and president of iGR, is an acknowledged wireless and mobile industry authority and an accomplished presenter. Gillott has been involved in the wireless industry, as both a vendor and analyst, for more than 20 years. IGR was founded in 2000 as iGillottResearch in order to provide in-depth market analysis and data focused exclusively on the wireless and mobile industry. Before founding iGR, Gillott was a Group VP in IDC’s telecommunications practice, managing IDC’s worldwide research on wireless and mobile communications and Internet access, telecom brands, residential and small business telecommunications and telecom billing services. Prior to joining IDC, Gillott was in various technical roles and a proposal manager at EDS (now Hewlett-Packard), responsible for preparing new business proposals to wireless and mobile operators.
