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Telco Digitization

White Box SDN/NFV

The telecom industry has gone through massive changes in the last 10 years and will continue to evolve during the next 10. There are many drivers of change, and the most significant of these is Moore’s Law and the Tick-TockTM cadence of the Intel x86TM platform. This cadence propels the evolution of the IT industry and pulls the telecom industry closer in practices and technology expectations. ABI Research forecasts that mobile network operators will embrace virtualization, beginning with the network services plane, and then moving to the control plane and data plane. The services plane represents the near-term opportunity for operators seeking a virtualized operating environment.

Mobile Broadband Operators are aware that much of the Telecom Equipment Manufacturers leverage the Intel platform into the proprietary and highly customized solutions. Having witnessed the business transformation of smaller WebScale companies, operators are seeking to leverage the data center scale economies of the IT vendors, from top tier to emerging white box vendors. Performance trends according to Intel roadmap are derived and projected over several generations and into the future to give insight of where SDN/NFV solutions are heading. 

ABI Research analyzes this market as operators will increasingly look like WebScale companies rather than traditional telecom companies. The pros and cons, strengths and weakness for the operator, the established telecom vendor, and newly emergent but potentially disruptive software vendors are discussed. The market forecasts in view of the service plane, control plane, and data plan migrating to virtualized deployments, and consideration given to commercial IT deployments in these parts of the networks.

Table of Contents

  • 1. TELECOM OPERATORS RESEMBLING IT BUSINESSES
  • 2. BACKGROUND ON SDN AND NFV
    • 2.1. Network Functions Virtualization
    • 2.2. Software-defined Networking
  • 3. WHY SDN AND NFV
    • 3.1. CAPEX Savings
    • 3.2. Virtualized Core Network Forecast
    • 3.3. Eliminate the Weakest Link
    • 3.4. Impact of Commercial IT Equipment
    • 3.5. OPEX Savings and Revenue Generation
    • 3.6. Strategic Value and Competitive Differentiation
    • 3.7. SDN/NFV Summary
  • 4. COMMERCIAL IT OR WHITE BOX?
    • 4.1. Reasons for White Box
    • 4.2. Reasons against White Box
  • 5. WEB SCALE AND WHITE BOX
    • 5.1. Web Scale Companies
    • 5.2. IT Firms
    • 5.3. Telecom Firms
  • 6. WHITE BOX AND WEB SCALE CONSIDERATIONS FOR TELECOMS
    • 6.1. Service and Support
    • 6.2. Compatibility
    • 6.3. Software Reliability
    • 6.4. Legacy Systems and Integration
    • 6.5. Software License Fees
  • 7. SPEED-POWER AND THE LAWS OF PHYSICS
    • 7.1. EPC Example
    • 7.2. Reference Designs
  • 8. RECOMMENDATIONS
    • 8.1. Telecom Infrastructure Vendors
    • 8.2. Commercial IT Vendors
    • 8.3. Telecom Operators
  • 9. TELECOM EPC VENDORS
    • 9.1. Alcatel-Lucent
    • 9.2. Ericsson
    • 9.3. Huawei
    • 9.4. Nokia Siemens Networks
    • 9.5. ZTE
    • 9.6. Cisco
    • 9.7. Juniper
    • 9.8. NEC
    • 9.9. Connectem Inc.
  • 10. SERVER BRANDS
    • 10.1. Established Server Brands
    • 10.2. Emerging Server Brands
  • 11. DEFINITIONS

Tables

  1. Operator Example Expenses, 2010 to 2012
  2. Web Scale IT Revenues
  3. Telecom Revenues
  4. Alcatel-Lucent EPC
  5. Ericsson EPC
  6. Huawei EPC
  7. Nokia Siemens Networks EPC
  8. ZTE EPC
  9. Cisco EPC
  10. Juniper EPC
  11. NEC EPC
  12. Connectem EPC
  13. Acronym Definitions

Charts

  1. Virtualized Core Network Revenue, World Market, Forecast: 2013 to 2018
  2. EPC Performance versus Power
  3. CPU Performance Evolution, 65 nm to 22 nm
  4. Desktop CPU Evolution, 45 nm to 14 nm

Figures

  1. Intel SDN/NFV Reference Designs
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Research Information

  • Price Log in to view pricing
  • Publish Date 3Q 2013
  • Research Type Application Analysis Report
  • Code AN-1265
  • Pages 20
  • Tables 13
  • Charts 4
  • Figures 1
  • File Format PDF

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