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GCI Chooses Netcracker

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General Communication, Inc. (GCI), the leading communications service provider in Alaska, has selected Netcracker to enable its Polaris program to optimize customer experience. These new BSS/OSS capabilities will allow GCI to reduce operational costs through managed services and bring services to the market more quickly through automated and streamlined fulfillment and provisioning process. [Read more…]

Andorra Telecom Optimizes Converged Billing by Deploying Additional Netcracker BSS Capabilities

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Netcracker Technology announced recently that Andorra Telecom has gone live with a BSS expansion by implementing Netcracker’s Online Charging System and Voucher Management solution to consolidate its pre-paid and post-paid customers onto a single converged billing platform. The BSS solutions will integrate with Andorra Telecom’s already extensive suite of end-to-end Netcracker BSS and OSS solutions. [Read more…]

Vivo Accelerates Service Delivery Capabilities by Upgrading Netcracker Solution

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Netcracker Technology has announced that Vivo, the largest telecommunications service provider in Brazil, is upgrading Netcracker’s Activation Manager solution to streamline the process of bringing innovative new services to market. The upgraded solution’s newer features will support Vivo?s long-term business growth strategies and reduce total cost of ownership. [Read more…]

Netcracker Brings Digital Transformation Focus to #MWC16

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Netcracker Technology announced today that it will showcase its portfolio of digital transformation solutions and services at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona, Spain. During the event, Netcracker will highlight its experience and capabilities as a strategic partner that helps service providers successfully embark on complete digital transformations through the use of end-to-end data-driven BSS/OSS capabilities and innovative software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) solutions. [Read more…]

TOT Combines Pre-Paid, Post-Paid, Mobile and Fixed Billing with Convergent NetCracker Solution

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NetCracker Technology announced today that TOT Public Company Limited has implemented NetCracker’s Convergent Billing Solution to combined their pre-paid and post-paid fixed and mobile rating, charging and billing processes. This consolidated platform will allow TOT to improve their billing accuracy, flexibility and agility to deliver a superior customer experience. [Read more…]

T-Mobile Netherlands Implements NetCracker Product Management Solution

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NetCracker Technology announced that T-Mobile Netherlands has implemented NetCracker’s Product Management solution in order to not only obtain a centralized view of their product catalog, but to also enhance their product management capabilities. This platform will enable T-Mobile Netherlands to simplify the way it manages products across their lifecycles, from development to production to retirement. [Read more…]

Bright House Networks Deploys NetCracker CRM Solution

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Bright House Networks has deployed NetCracker’s eCommerce and CRM solutions in order to enhance the customer experience and deliver increased personalization through more effective and automated customer engagements. The offerings will not only simplify customer management by allowing customers to self-manage their service requirements, but will also enable Bright House Networks to streamline their sales and order fulfillment process to maximize efficiency and customer experience. [Read more…]

O2 in the UK Extends NetCracker Hosted Managed Services Partnership

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NetCracker Technology announced recently that Telefónica UK, which operates as O2 in the UK, has agreed to extend the use of NetCracker’s Revenue Management solution through a hosted managed services model for two new significant initiatives. By using NetCracker’s Revenue Management solution and Hosted Managed Services, O2 will provide rating, billing and mediation capabilities for a nationwide smart metering program across 53 million devices as well as a large-scale partner revenue-sharing ecosystem, which allows Telefónica customers to purchase third-party products and services that can be charged directly to their monthly phone bill. [Read more…]

Slovak Telekom Selects NetCracker

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NetCracker Technology has expanded its billing relationship with Slovak Telekom, the largest telecommunications service provider in Slovakia. Slovak Telekom will leverage NetCracker’s Revenue Management solution to bring its fixed and mobile billing processes onto a single, end-to-end platform. [Read more…]

Suddenlink Communications Leverages NetCracker’s Managed Services to Improve Business AgilityAbout NetCracker Technology

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NetCracker Technology announced that Suddenlink Communications, one of the largest cable broadband services providers in the United States, has expanded its partnership with NetCracker by engaging in a multi-year managed services program. As part of this initiative, NetCracker will deliver its cutting-edge CRM solution to Suddenlink via a fully hosted managed service model with industry-leading SLAs. [Read more…]

Virtualization Needs Strong Use Cases and Ongoing Industry Support to Push Forward

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As SDN & OpenFlow World Congress winds down, the future of SDN and NFV will be determined by continued hard work and viable business cases.

This week at SDN & OpenFlow World Congress, a lot of talk was devoted to what’s still needed to get virtualization technologies out of the lab and proof of concept stage and into full-scale commercial productions. This includes multi-vendor support, partnerships, standards and a more open environment. There is movement on each of those fronts, but there’s still a way to go, and in the meantime questions around the business cases and real-world viability of SDN and NFV still swirl around the industry.

Eric Hanselman, Chief Analyst at 451 Research, said that now that the industry has been working with SDN for about seven years and NFV for about three, deployments have finally gone beyond just the theoretical. He said the level of maturity in the technologies and standards, along with a wide range of operators deploying functionality around these capabilities, means SDN and NFV have hit their stride.

However, he cautioned, what’s happening today is part of a much longer journey along which the industry is probably only at the midpoint if even that far. It may still be early days, but Hanselman said the industry must continue to look ahead to areas such as improving scale and capabilities in terms of application sophistication, true service orchestration, a broader ecosystem and greater integration with BSS and OSS.

With interesting use cases such as the Internet of Things (IoT) already here, now’s the time to seize those opportunities to realize the benefits of virtualization.

The Internet of Everything
IoT is a natural use case that will greatly benefit from virtualization technologies. As sensors, wearables and other devices proliferate in applications ranging from connected cars and homes to fitness trackers and package delivery, among just a very few examples, issues such as traffic volume, latency, reliability and performance will be significant. Considering the IoT is expected to quickly ramp up to many billions of devices in the next five years, the network issues alone are daunting.

But by bringing in NFV, operators will be better able to optimize traffic management. For example, by managing bursts of traffic – which will be a common occurrence with many IoT applications – at the network edge, they will be able to manage performance degradation much more efficiently. In addition, operators will be able to offload control and data plane traffic using vEPC, while SDN will bring dynamic provisioning to the table, which will allow for real-time capacity management by allocating bandwidth as needed. SDN will also enable security enforcement at the network edge to provide a more tightly controlled environment for IoT applications.

Commercial Deployments Ramping Up
Another use case for virtualization comes in the form of the virtual CPE (vCPE), which Telefónica plans to roll out in 2016, according to Francisco-Javier Ramon Salguero, Head of Network Virtualization at the operator’s GCTO Unit. He said that while the industry as a whole might be in the middle of the virtualization journey, and not quite to the end goals of better programmability and overall simplicity of network operations, Telefónica belief has been that it’s not enough to discuss the technology; instead, it’s necessary to get your hands dirty in order to move virtualization efforts forward. And with today’s access network getting more and more complicated, vCPE brings a strong business case to operators.

Overall, the mood at SDN & OpenFlow World Congress has been one of optimism but tempered by the reality that the work is far from over. But given the intense commitment on the part of operators, vendors, standards organizations and others, by the next time this event convenes there will likely be many more real-world examples alongside even more interesting and innovative use cases.

*NetCracker Technology submits this article live from the SDN & OpenFlow World Congress

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