NEW DELHI: Telecom operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have begun discussions with technology providers for virtualization of networks, which will help launch new products and services faster.
This will help incumbent operators counter 4G entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm and over-the-top service providers, analysts said. Idea Cellular's chief technology officer Anil Tandan said the company, India's No. 3 telco, is closely studying the development and implementation of network virtualization techniques such as SDN (software defined network) and NFV (network functions virtualization) in networks in India and across the world.
"We are in the process of evaluating the technical offers for these technologies and expect to deploy SDN and NFV on a limited scale by late 2017," Tandan said. With virtualized network architecture, a telco can launch a service in a couple of months and can even become a marketplace of services such as video streaming, cloud services, security and firewall services.
Jio, which kicked off its operations with data and voice services along with digital content and utility services, has intensified competition and changed the dynamics of India's telecom market, causing top telcos to make investments in new technologies such as NFV. Tandon said that these technologies are key to Idea's strategy and focus on introduction of new services on 4G network, and cost optimization and improvement of customer experience.
In a bid to overcome the threat from Jio, Idea plans to start its own digital services including Idea Videos, Idea Chat and Idea Games in the ongoing quarter to March. In the next financial year, it plans to launch Idea TV, Idea News and Magazines, and Idea Storage.
Vodafone India is looking at virtualizing its networks using technologies NFV. "We are choosing best-in-class partners, select incumbent suppliers and new innovators; crafting a solution across the stacks that work the best for us," a Vodafone spokesman said. "We are reworking the stacks, assessing options and innovations, and systematically building deep expertise in our teams."
The spokesman further said that virtualization will enable slicing and offering of new services, with agility on demand, enabling monetization. "While virtualisation itself will create value for all participants, substantial value will come from engineering prowess that Vodafone has the expertise and experience for creating," the spokesman said. The technology will help offer multiple applications on same infrastructure and drive better utilization of these costly proprietary boxes, he said.
Bharti Airtel also offers music and on-demand video services. Besides, it relaunched its MyAirtel app to provide access to integrate cloud storage service as well. According to analysts, the company is already leveraging virtualization technologies to power these services. ET's queries did not elicit a response from Bharti Airtel.
VMware is one technology provider which is holding talks with all the leading telcos for deploying NFV. "The Jio launch is causing everybody to come in and say are we going to counter that or how are we going to match up that. It's a survival question... It is no longer a choice for telcos to deploy this technology," Shekar Ayyar, general manager of VMware's telco NFV business, told ET. He said that within a year, India is likely to see much greater NFV-based architecture deployment.
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