Huawei is using the upgrade to pave the way for the commercial launch of 5G services
China Mobile Hong Kong (CMHK) and Chinese vendor Huawei have successfully migrated the telco’s services to a NFV-based cloud core network for commercial use.
China Mobile Hong Kong claims to be the first operator to cloudify its core network in Hong Kong.
CMHK deployed the 3GPP system, providing services for more than 20 network systems such as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), Evolved Packet Core (EPC), Diameter Routing Agent/ Mobile Number Portability (DRA/MNP), Home Subscriber Server/ Home Location Register (HSS/HLR) and Mobile Switching Center-Server (MSC-S). The deployment also paves the way for the future launch of 5G services.
“We are pleased to partner with Huawei to migrate CMHK’s legacy networks to cloud networks,” said Sean Lee, Director and Chief Executive Officer of CMHK. “With our two professional teams in force, it only took half a year to complete the preparation work for the migration and activation for commercial use. The synergy between CMHK and Huawei is expected to ensure our entire cloud networks will be smoothly put into commercial use, bringing better service to our customers.”
“On CMHK’s cloud network, network elements in IMS, Packet Switched and Circuit Switched domains are co-deployed. VoLTE (Voice Over LTE), VoWiFi (Voice Over WiFi) and mobile data services are co-operated,” Wang Yongde, VP of Huawei’s Cloud Core Network Product Line, said.
“Compared to legacy core networks, cloud-core networks are more elastic and robust. CMHK and Huawei are jointly developing new technologies, such as network slicing and edge computing to lead the transformation to cloud networks,” he added.
HKT urges Hong Kong authorities to take actions for 5G development
In other APAC news, Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) said the local government should take actions in order to pave the way for the future deployment of commercial 5G services.
The telco said that the Hong Kong authorities did not implement any action to advance 5G development in the city.
HKT said the government’s “short-sighted policies on mobile spectrum… are set to negatively impact mobile users and the Hong Kong economy for the many years to come.” The telco also said that no new spectrum has been made available since 2013.
