Vodafone Hutchison Australia to virtualise network

Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has contracted major networking vendors Ericsson and Cisco to jointly modernise and virtualise the mobile operator’s core and IP networks.

VHA, the joint venture which owns the Vodafone Australia brand, will deploy a joint network consisting of hardware, software and services from the two vendors.

The deployment will include a hyperscale data centre system, a cloud services router and software components including cloud management tools and a software-defined networking (SDN) controller from Ericsson.

Cisco will meanwhile supply a wide area network automation engine, IP network virtual network functions (VNFs) and both physical and virtual security technologies.

With the upgrade VHA aims to reduce both operational and capital expenditures, gain the ability to bring services to market more proactively and rapidly, and improve the customer experience.

“Ericsson and Cisco are our existing providers of core and routing functions, making them good partners to move into a virtualised environment,” VHA CTO Kevin Millroy said.

“This transformation allows us to introduce new applications to drive innovation and improve customer services and user experience. The new infrastructure opens the door to new business models and markets, such as Internet of Things for Vodafone. We are excited about the future prospects this partnership offers.”

VHA contracted Ericsson to replace and upgrade its complete core network in 2014 as part of the operator’s $4 billion overhaul of the Vodafone Australia network. The upgrades followed a series of network outages in the preceding years that were threatening the company’s brand reputation.

Ericsson and Cisco signed a broad-ranging partnership agreement in late 2015, but this marks the first time the two companies have collaborated on telecom cloud infrastructure.

Image courtesy of Jonathan Oakley under CC