Cisco today said more than 25 telecom service providers including China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom Technik and Telecom Italia are using Cisco Evolved Services Platform (Cisco ESP) to transform their networks to optimize network value, increase business agility and enable better operational efficiencies.
Cisco ESP, an advanced virtualization offering, creates, automates and provisions services in real time, across compute, storage and network functions, to deliver desired business outcomes for applications running across multiple domains.
“Virtualization is a key area of interest for China Mobile’s future network architecture. We are pleased to see Cisco move in this direction with the virtualized packet core and we are using it in demonstrations at our booth at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona,” said Zhiqiang Yang, deputy general manager of China Mobile Research Institute, China Mobile.
Residing between the application and Cisco EPN layers of the architecture, the Cisco ESP enables service providers to deliver the right type of experience for each customer need, regardless of how they are connected to the network (e.g., fixed, mobile, Wi-Fi).
Telecom Italia selected Cisco as a key partner to explore the challenges of a software defined network with the collaboration of prominent Italian Universities due to their commitment to unlock the potential of software and virtualization in the network.
“Increasing our ability to innovate and reducing operating expenditure were key factors driving our decision to investigate the real world benefits of software defined networking,” said Paolo Fasano, data networks innovation manager, Telecom Italia.
The Cisco ESP works with the Cisco Evolved Programmable Network (EPN) and is designed to enable service providers to accelerate the delivery of innovative new services, increase revenues by offering consistent and differentiated experiences, and decrease operational expenses by optimizing existing network infrastructures.
“Virtualization is important to DT as we look into the evolution of our network and IT infrastructure, and we are glad to see Cisco also moving in this direction,” said Guido Menzel, senior vice president of fixed mobile engineering, Deutsche Telekom Technik.