SDN, NFV and Indian Telcos

 


 

 

I returned with useful insights from the SDN-NFV India earlier this month. There were two discernible trends – optimistic solution vendors and cautious telcos.

Indian telcos are worried about the following:

  • Indian telcos, including the largest ones, are genuinely concerned about the solidity and stability of SDN and NFV products. Telcos think that vendors do not completely appreciate the difference between a service outage suffered by Facebook and an outage suffered by a licensed cellular operator. The former can be irritating, the latter can be catastrophic.
  • Indian telcos are also looking towards concrete ways of making money from SDN and NFV. What works with telcos in the US may not work with Indian telcos.

The above points were recurring themes. You could say that Indian telcos were never among the early adopters of technologies. You could also say that Indian telcos are bleeding far too heavily in the present to think rationally about overhauling their networks.

Plenty has been spoken and written about how SDN and NFV products and solutions continue to mature and grow in stature. In light of the above apprehensions, I think that the vendors have their task cut out on educating their customers in India.

 
Published on: October 21, 2018

 
Kaustubha Parkhi
Principal Analyst, Insight Research
 

 

RELATED BLOGS

What ails 5G-SA?

      Our recent report “Virtual Core – Gateway to the “Real 5G”; brought out one thing very clearly – 5G SA is clearly taking longer than anticipated.  The reasons are many – telco ennui with the constant architectural flux without commensurate returns being the main one. Telcos have had their fingers burnt with the seemingly never-ending … Continue reading What ails 5G-SA?

India – Don’t forget 5G!

    I recently conducted a poll on the prospects of 5G roll-out in India. I basically tried to gauge the perception about the availability of 5G in India – on or before 2021; or after that. Expectedly, the overwhelming response was the latter. India has too many challenges to surmount before 5G can make … Continue reading India – Don’t forget 5G!

The AI-RAN Alliance: The idea whose time has come

      Of all the announcements at MWC24, the one that validates our focus on AI in RAN is the formation of the AI-RAN Alliance. Coinciding with the release of our report “AI and RAN – How fast can they run?”, the Alliance checks all the boxes to furthering AI from the periphery of the … Continue reading The AI-RAN Alliance: The idea whose time has come

Select your currency
USD United States (US) dollar