NEC and NetCracker Technologies have launched a new vIMS, as a new report commissioned by Amdocs highlighted the bounty awaiting early adopters of vCPE.
NEC and NetCracker’s vIMS, developed through the companies’ joint SDN/NFV brand, offers virtualised control and data plane functions for 3G and VoLTE services, which can be managed from the NEC/NetCracker Network and Service Orchestration platform.
According to the companies, the virtualisation of IMS enables high-quality VoLTE and HD video calling at a lower cost than traditional setups, while at the same time reducing service delivery and optimising performance.
The vIMS solution allows both signalling and data transfer function to be run over a “common virtualisation platform” on general-purpose servers. By allowing operators to deploy IMS functions based on service demands, the solution allows CSP to optimise IMS environments and launch new services more easily, the companies claimed.
Diane Myers, Research Director at IHS, said virtualised IMS solutions were “one of the first use cases operators plan to deploy in NFV”.
NEC and NetCracker also revealed that they are expanding their SDN/ NFV partner programme.
The companies have introduced a new “virtual lab environment” that will allow partners to test new SDN/NFV applications and services using their virtualisation technology.
The new NEC SDN Partner Space ecosystem portal provides access to NEC’s ProgrammableFlow SDN Controller as well as NEC/NetCracker’s Orchestration, vCPE, vEPC and OSS/BSS systems.
The programme aims to encourage the development of new IoT and cloud-based services and accelerate their time-to-market.
Jiro Kitakaze, General Manager of NEC’s Smart Networks Division, said: “The NEC SDN Partner Space [can] help both our enterprise and service provider customers operationalise SDN and NFV solutions, introducing new revenue growth opportunities and the ability to enable more agile operations.
[Read more: Telefónica completes enterprise SDN/NFV PoC with NEC, NetCracker]
“We are excited to announce this expansion into NFV, which will bring about new capabilities in orchestration to empower even more functionality for our customers.”
Meanwhile, a report from Analysis Mason concluded that “first mover” SDN/NFV service providers stand to realise up to $1.4 billion (€XXX million) in new revenues.
The study, commissioned by Amdocs, focused on enterprise virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE) and residential set-top-box replacement (vSTB), which were identified as being the first areas of NFV expected to see commercial deployment.
According to the study, service providers that launch vCPE early could see a five percent increase in annual revenue, in addition to a 79 percent reduction in order-to-cash cost.
It also claimed that Residential vCPE/vSTB first movers stand to realise up to 82 percent in cost savings per home and a $655 million (€XXX million) increase in revenues from faster up-sells of bundled services.
Glen Ragoonanan of Analysys Mason and report co-author, said: “A vCPE-enabled services solution is a revolutionary opportunity for first-mover fixed-line service providers, provided they reach their critical mass ̶ 50 percent for residential and 40 percent for enterprise ̶ for vCPE customer migration.”