China Mobile and Alcatel-Lucent complete live NFV trial
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China Mobile and Alcatel-Lucent complete live NFV trial

China Mobile and Alcatel-Lucent have allegedly conducted the industry’s first live field trial of virtualised radio access network architecture, based on network functions virtualisation (NFV) technology.

The trial saw Alcatel-Lucent provide its vRAN and NFV technologies across the 442 hectares of Tisinghua University in Beijing, providing both indoor and outdoor coverage.

The companies claim that this technology enhances efficiencies, reduces costs and lays the foundations for 5G.

“The vRAN technology will allow us to deliver new efficiencies across our network as our customers’ data demands change and more devices connect to our network,” said Chih-Lin I, chief scientist at China Mobile Research Institute.

“We are interested to see how the deployment of Alcatel-Lucent’s vRAN will help us to smoothly evolve our networks to meet these demands.”

The trial demonstrated the flexibility of the vRAN network, including its ability to scale network resources in response to traffic demands across the university campus.

“Alcatel-Lucent is committed to delivering the latest innovations that enable our customers to get the most out of their LTE networks and enable a smooth path to 5G,” Glenn Booth, SVP and general manager at Alcatel-Lucent’s LTE business unit.

“This trial is a prime example of how we are working with customers to develop, test and deploy networks with the highest performance and efficiencies and the lowest costs.”

Last week, Alcatel-Lucent signed a MoU to test NFV with Telefonica, and earlier this month, China Mobile selected the French vendor to for its transition to cloud-based networking.

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