Radical Network Change: from Future Plans to Actual Deployment

The Evolution of Telecom

Many years ago, I was studying for my Master’s degree at George Washington University, and decided to learn about Telecommunications. It seemed like an interesting topic, so just before starting the first course, I read the book we were assigned by the teacher – the 400-page ‘The Fall of the Bell System’, by Peter Temin.

By my first class, I was ready and hooked on the subject.

Telecom is evolving – sometimes faster, sometimes slower. From rotary to digital, from wireless phones to smartphones, 3G, 4G and now 5G…Telcos now face the need for network change, driven by requirements to scale capacity while drastically reducing costs and supporting new revenue sources based on cloud models.

From Network Evolution to Network Revolution

In 2019, Heavy Reading published a research paper for DriveNets, to explore how telecom operators plan to address the demands facing networks, in terms of scale and agility, and how likely are they to adopt disruptive networking approaches to achieve their goals and lower costs. It was clear that cloud concepts – such as disaggregation of software and hardware and the adoption of standard white boxes – have evolved due to hyperscalers’ need to streamline their operations and lower their cost.  And yet, in the midst of such a dramatic transformation of the datacenter world, networks haven’t changed.  They were still designed and deployed with the same old model, using monolithic proprietary router chassis.

While it was still early days for disaggregation (with the foundation of internet largely unchanged for the past 30 years), the research indicated that the fact that most networks were running on monolithic, proprietary IP systems limited their networks’ ability to easily grow while remaining cost-effective. In 2019, almost 50% of survey respondents indicated that they expected radical changes in the upcoming three years, with the main drivers being lowering network costs, scaling network to accommodate traffic growth, and reducing operational complexity.

Three years was generous. Less than two years later, things have changed dramatically.

From ‘Time for Radical Change’ to a ‘Radical Network Change to Cloud’

In 2019, network operators indicated that disaggregation and white box adoption was an important element for their overall IP network plans, and between 13-25% had already deployed such solutions.

Turns out that things have started moving much faster, partially thanks to Covid-19, which demanded more scalability for networks everywhere, not only on enterprises and business environments. Communications service providers (CSP) had to scramble and work hard to quickly scale capacity and deliver the necessary network services.  Reducing costs and better scalability became a major concern for CSPs, as they adapted to the new normal.

“Today, the pervasiveness of the public cloud is evident in 5G network builds, edge computing strategies, software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) services, and the overall accelerating migration of hyperscalers—including Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—into telecommunications.”

Sterling Perrin, Heavy Reading

So in 2021, Heavy Reading launched a new survey of operators around the world. In less than two years, the survey showed that CSPs were now eagerly looking for more information and were keen to know where other service providers were heading.  From the 13-25% that had already deployed white box disaggregated solutions, the number jumped to 28-41%!  In fact, as much as 90% expect it to see it happens within five years.

In which of the following network domains does your organization plan to modernize and implement disaggregated and/or cloud-native architectures?

The Main Drivers for Network Architectural Change

While cost reduction and network scalability are still some of the top drivers to change network architecture, the move to a cloud strategy became a major factor in the industry today.  In fact, there is significant momentum towards increased disaggregation, as shown by the successful deployment of DriveNets solution over AT&T’s core network, substantiating the benefits of a software-based, disaggregated network.

Heavy Reading: What are the main drivers for architectural change to your IP networks?

2019 Survey	2021 Survey
Lower network costs	Cost reduction
Scale network to accommodate traffic growth	Move to cloud strategy
Reduce operational complexity	Network scale
Support cloud services	Vendor diversity (avoid vendor lock-in)
Shorten time-to-market of new services	Simpler operations