In this update, we present a review of telco cloud deployments for the whole of 2022 and discuss trends that will shape the year ahead. Fewer deployments than expected were completed in 2022. The main reason for this was a delay in previously announced 5G Standalone (SA) core roll-outs, for reasons we have analysed elsewhere. However, we expect these deployments to be largely completed in 2023.
In this update we present more granular data into the RAN to track the shift towards disaggregation across vendor ecosystems. It is still very early days with open RAN and vRAN, with 33 deployments in total, but we expect this to accelerate over the coming year.
More telcos are making deals to run their VNFs on the public cloud. Not much is live yet. But cloud hosting of network functions will support telcos in realising the benefits of cloud-native, and we believe telcos can safely go further and faster.
New growth from 5G standalone, RAN and SASE is getting underway, amidst maturity and decline in foundational deployments.
How can multiple access technologies (4G, 5G, Wi-Fi, fixed line) be used together to deliver a resilient, optimised and consistent experience of network quality and coverage? An introduction to the landscape, opportunities and challenges in providing a single user experience across multiple networks.
SDN and NFV deployment is growing deeper but not broader: the long tail lags behind the pioneers.
This update to our ‘NFV Deployment Tracker’ series focuses on Asia-Pacific, alongside European and North American data to March 2018. Telcos in developed Asian markets have made a great start, and the region has outstripped Europe and North America in live SDN / NFV deployments – but can NFV scale to Asia as a whole?
This update to our ‘NFV Deployment Tracker’ series focuses on North America, alongside additional European data. 2016/7 has seen the rise of SD-WAN, enabling smaller operators to compete in the WAN market with NFV leaders AT&T, Verizon, Masergy, CenturyLink, etc. By contrast, fewer consumer use cases for NFV have yet been established.
STL Partners has compiled a new quarterly-updated tracker service of commercial deployments of NFV and SDN by leading telcos worldwide, providing an Excel database accompanied by an analytical report. The first update, devoted to Europe, found operators and vendors focusing on core network virtualisation and SDN/SD-WAN have so far led the way, as timelines on more systematic transformation programmes have been extended.