Telenor Pakistan develops its own Cloud network

Making another disruptive, industry-first move for digital transformation of the country’s ICT sector, Telenor Pakistan has developed its own cloud network on which the company successfully tested the first 3G voice call and first LTE data call. The move is a hallmark achievement in Telenor Pakistan’s network virtualization journey, making it the first cellular operator in Pakistan to have an in-house Cloud platform enabling digitization of all network functions.

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Using telco cloud technology from Nokia, including Nokia’s AirFrame data center solution and OpenStack-based Nokia CloudBand software, and ZTE’s virtualized MSS and virtualized PGW functions, Telenor Pakistan has successfully implemented integrated VNF solutions which are key enablers for its network transformation. The data call utilized Nokia’s SR-IOV enabled AirFrame servers thus leveraging an acceleration technology that is used for high-throughput applications in a virtualized environment and further demonstrating Telenor’s advanced standing in the telecommunications market. During the next few months, the company will continue building on this platform and virtualize all the network functions that currently exist on proprietary hardware today. Telenor’s technology division has been working on the project for quite some time in an effort to materialize the company’s network transformation goals and help Telenor strengthen its foothold as the ICT leader of the digital revolution.

Once fully deployed, the newly built Cloud platform will drastically improve response time to customer requests, provide more freedom in building customers solutions, and result in the addition of new revenue streams by means of public Cloud offering. The move will also bring efficiency, scalability, and automation to Telenor’s network which is a key enabler for bringing quality network services to end customers.

“I consider development and successful testing of our own Cloud network as a huge stride toward our network virtualization goals, and this is just the beginning of a whole new era,” said Khurrum Ashfaque, Chief Technology Officer, Telenor Pakistan. “We take pride in continuing our streak of disruptive, industry-first moves toward digitization of the ICT sector in Pakistan, and believe that our Cloud platform will not only benefit Telenor as an organization, but also enable us to deliver more to our customers in terms of digital products and services further strengthening our position as the customer favorite digital services provider.”

“Nokia is proud to have helped Telenor achieve this ground-breaking milestone, taking important steps towards virtualization of its network. It is great to see Telenor leveraging the strong multi-vendor capabilities of Nokia’s cloud infrastructure,” said Khalid Khan, Head of the Middle East Growth Markets at Nokia. “We are committed to supporting Telenor to take advantage of the virtualization toward overall digital transformation while reducing expenses and providing newer services faster.”

“We are pleased to have helped Pakistan’s second largest cellular and digital services provider materialize their network transformation goals by assisting them in developing their own Cloud system,” said Fan Hu, SVP ZTE Corporation. “Ranked Number 1 in filing patents globally, ZTE invests more than 10% of annual revenue on R&D, employing over 30,000 research professionals in the development of next-generation technologies including 5G, IoT, NFV, SDN, Cloud Computing, Big Data and Smart City”