Nokia, China Unicom trial virtualized services router for residential broadband

Nokia says it is conducting a live trial of its Virtualized Services Router (VSR) in China Unicom's commercial network. The trial currently involves more than 5,000 residential subscribers in the province of Shandong; it will expand to other parts of China over the next two years in its next phase, which will include delivery of IPTV services. The trial aims to test the use of the VSR to see how a network based on virtualized network functions (VNFs) might simplify and accelerate residential broadband services delivery.

China Unicom is adopting software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) to as part of an evolution toward a cloud-ready network, Nokia says. Within this context, the trial uses the Nokia VSR as a virtualized broadband network gateway (BNG) for residential subscriber management functions and advanced service capabilities. Nokia says China Unicom plans to migrate BNG services to the virtualized platform as part of its initiative to transform its metro service edge.

"Upon completion of this network transformation project, China Unicom will ensure increased operational efficiency and deliver a superior customer experience for its subscribers," stated Sri Reddy, head of IP Routing and Packet Core business at Nokia.

Nokia (as Alcatel-Lucent, before Nokia acquired it) first introduced the VSR concept in 2014 (see "Alcatel-Lucent offers virtualized IP edge router functions via Intel servers").

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