Ericsson and telecommunications operator Swisscom are now live with a full-stack telco cloud infrastructure, with the first service assisting small and medium enterprises. The Swisscom cloud-based enterprise service is deployed on Ericsson's Network Functions Virtualization infrastructure (NFVi) solution [1], and went into commercial operation in September.
The two companies will now begin to onboard other services to address further market segments and opportunities, while ensuring business continuity management and automation process evolution of live solutions.
This latest news is a result of last year's announcement from the two companies, where Swisscom selected Ericsson to transform its network infrastructure [2] through the deployment of a full stack telecom cloud solution, including Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN). Ericsson's NFVi offering comprises Ericsson Cloud Manager, Ericsson Cloud Execution Environment, Ericsson Cloud SDN, Ericsson Hyperscale Datacenter System 8000, and system integration and support services.
Daniel Staub, Head of Joint Mobile Group, Swisscom, says: "Ericsson's NFVi solution provides Swisscom with the speed, agility and efficiency that we need to deploy new services and capture the opportunities presented by 5G and IoT. Our first service is now live, servicing the small and medium enterprise market, and we will continue to work closely with Ericsson to onboard other services in the immediate future."
Ulf Ewaldsson, Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Services, Ericsson, says: "Operators around the world are transforming their networks in preparation for 5G and IoT, and network virtualization is a key component of a 5G Ready Core network. Our NFVi solution helps Swisscom to rapidly address changing consumer demands with swift development and deployment of innovative new service offerings for a plethora of new use cases presented by 5G and IoT."
Live deployment of Ericsson NFVi signifies an important first step for Swisscom to transform its network, and for the two companies to build the necessary infrastructure required to further their 5G for Switzerland program [3] activities. Under the program, Ericsson, Swisscom and EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne) are working with industry partners to develop and trial industrial applications with 5G and IoT technology in areas such as smart transportation, autonomous driving, automated traffic control systems, smart grids and manufacturing.
