Pace of NFV Depends on How Providers See Benefits, RAD's Yuri Gittik to Tell Carrier Virtualization Conference

How quickly Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) becomes widespread depends entirely on what benefits service providers perceive in this fast-evolving functionality and how quickly they drive the changes necessary to achieve those benefits.

That is what Yuri Gittik, Head of Strategic Marketing at RAD, will share with the audience at the Carrier Network Virtualization conference here in a presentation Wednesday.

“It is clear that NFV offers advantages to providers such as quicker time to market and revenue for business and consumer services, new network capabilities to fit rapidly changing needs, and lower operating expenses,” according to Gittik. “But which of these benefits, at what timeframe and in what proportion, will be a main driver for service providers remains to be seen.”

Gittik’s presentation is part of the Strategic Leadership Insight Panel on how virtualization will benefit service provider networks in the long term. That session is at 9:20 a.m. Wednesday.

Gittik leads development of RAD's Distributed NFV strategy, which specifically emphasizes locating virtualized functions at the customer premises, not necessarily in data centers or in the network where many in the industry are pigeonholing it. RAD has been contributing to articulate this approach in the ETSI NFV Industrial Standardization Group, the committee developing NFV standards.

“Virtualized functions should be located at the most appropriate places where they will be the most effective and least expensive,” Gittik says. “A service provider should be free to locate NFV in any site, specifically there are often clear advantages to locate this virtualized functionality at the customer premises. These advantages range from economics to performance to the feasibility of the functions and policy conformance.”

RAD announced its Distributed NFV approach in September, as a natural evolution of its Service Assured Access Solutions offerings. The solutions, based on dedicated Layer 2/3 demarcation capabilities, accelerate service deployments and network functionality enhancements, to increase revenue opportunities and lower the total cost of ownership.

RAD customers include operators and service providers such as Bharti Airtel, British Telecom, CenturyLink, China Mobile, China Telecom, Claro, Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile, Embratel, France Telecom/Orange, Hutchison, KDDI, KPN, SingTel, SoftBank, Telefónica, Telekom Austria, TeliaSonera, Telstra, Telus, Verizon, and Vodafone.