MOBILE Three / Nokia
“The cloud core platform that we have built and delivered enables this convergence of IT and network and
becomes a workload placement problem which is really important for 5G”
Fran Heeran Senior Vice President
Core Services & Care at Nokia
Disrupting the mobile industry
Three’s announcement of moving to a 95% cloud business strategy may seem radicle for some so
Elliot Mulley-Goodbarne went to find out more about the operator’s 5G plans
“is industry has become
too dormant and it needs
to be disrupted.”
ose were the bold
words of Tim Boyd, director
of business transformation
at ree as he unveiled the
Network’s new cloud core
infrastructure in preparation for
the 5G era.
With the help of Nokia
and 26 other partners, ree
launched the core mobile
network that runs 95 percent
on cloud technology. All mast
sites for 3G, 4G and the 5G
transmissions will be upgraded
to improve capacity, and trac
will be brought back through
the core network on the cloud
into new data centres.
Boyd continued “We are
upgrading all of our sites
across 3G, 4G and installing
5G. We are increasing a lot of
our transport infrastructure,
installing a lot of dark bre and
upgrading a lot of our capacity
on all of our sites. All of this
infrastructure is 100 per cent
new, there is no reuse of our
existing core G core network;
there is no use of our existing
data centres.”
Fran Heeran Senior Vice
President - Core Services & Care
at Nokia added ree are one
of the rst to fully embrace the
cloud in its network and will be
the rst to reap the benets.
“I think for the longest time
in this industry we have been
very much siloed between the
world of IT and the world of
network.
At Nokia, we are seeing signs
of convergence, but I think
ree have been one of the
rst in that respect. e cloud
core platform that we have
built and delivered enables this
convergence of IT and network
From left to right: Tim Boyd, Fran Heeran and Cormac Whelan (Nokia UKI CEO)
and becomes a workload
placement problem which is
really important for 5G.
If you add edge computing
to the equation as well, this
gives you a process where you
can very quickly decide where
you will place that network, in
the core network cloud, in the
IT cloud, on the edge or with
the hyperscalers and how to
manage that end to end.”
Future Ready
Boyd added that the new
infrastructure improved ree’s
ability to add innovations into
the network.
“We move from three data
centres owned by ree, run
by ree that require a lot of
maintenance and are not power
ecient, to 21 data centres of
varying capacity on the core.
So, we are starting to distribute
our core out, getting ready for
edge computing.
“We’re pushing our core
network out further than we
ever have before and what we
want to do is put that closer
to where the biggest demand
points are so we are no longer
bringing all of the trac back
to three locations in the UK
and then taking it out to the
internet or wherever it is.
“We are no longer stuck on,
‘I need one element of the core
and it’s a proprietary box and
it’s six months to deliver.’ It’s
software so we can scale this out
quite quickly.”
According the Heeran,
networks stand to make
signicant savings on
infrastructure and operations
by adopting a cloud core
network.
So far, savings have only
been seen by sharing hardware
but not the thirty-plus percent
that cloud could bring adding
that “rough automation and
next generation software stacks
we are seeing anywhere between
30 percent to 70 percent
operational savings depending
on the task or process.”
Migration
Boyd said that, as of mid-July,
the network has raised the
capacity migrated to the 5G
cloud core network up to ve
per cent and that it aims to have
100 per cent of its consumer
business on by September and
its wholesale and third party
businesses by the end of the
year.
ree have been able to
migrate 1.6 million unique
customers with Boyd adding
that the network is testing the
ability to make adjustments
to the cloud network without
disrupting the service quality.
“We are trying to just add
a little bit more capacity at a
time to test the network. e
other thing we are testing is
operational changes to make
sure that when we make a
change on the network it
doesn’t cause an issue.
“We want to test whether we
can have a 0.5 per cent change
on the network as well as a 10
per cent change without causing
any issues. Once we hit 25 per
cent capacity, we are pretty
stable and then we’ll move to 50
per cent. Once we get to 50 per
cent we are safe and we’ll move
the rest over a few days.
“Fundamentally, if you’re not
on cloud you will not be able
to do 5G and that is the true
turning point in the industry.”
56 | Comms Business Magazine | August 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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