Road to Network Cloudification: Singapore, South Korea & Japan

In this post we will be looking into operators of Singapore, South Korea & Japan. So far in the series we have already looked at US,Canada, India, UK & Rest of Europe.

This is the 5th post part of the "Road to Network Cloudification" series where the focus is on summarizing the virtualization journey so far, status & 5G related news of some of the major Operators in the region being discussed.

 

Note: As of 21st August, 2020 have started a new post with summary table capturing all regions, the operators from these post and their NFV ecosystem and 5G status. 

URL: https://matelecom.blogspot.com/2020/08/road-to-network-cloudification-summary-table.html  

Last Updated: 20th August 2020.

   1. Singapore: Singtel, M1 & Starhub

• Virtualization Journey/Status:
• Singtel, M1 & Starhub started planning their NFV strategies around 2015/16 time frame with more focus towards SDN & Enterprise offerings.
  
• M1 collaborated with VMware, Palo Alto Networks and Huawei to deploy a next-generation SDN technology proof of concept for its cloud-based data center in 2015.
• Similarly Starhub started transforming its existing core and access networks to open, cloud-based networks using software-defined networking (SDN) from Cisco & Huawei in 2015 with 2yrs time frame for completion.
  
• Singtel in 2016 launched software based router & firewall service based on NFV technology for enterprise customers in APAC region.
• Consequently, in 2017 M1 launched Singapore’s first virtual Enhanced Packet Core (vEPC) solution using Huawei virtualized offerings.
  
• Also in 2017/18 Starhub decided to implement Red Hat Openstack for its infrastructure. 
  
• Singtel in turn implemented VMWare's 5G ready NFV Telco Cloud to support its existing traffic and future 5G.
  

• 5G News:
  
• In order to easily implement 5G, Starhub & M1 decided in Jan 2020 to jointly bid for the 5G licenses.
• In May 2020, Singapore decided to deploy 5G directly as Standalone mode with full Singapore coverage by 2025.
  
• Singtel decided to use Ericsson solution for 5G deployment while M1& Starhub finalized on Nokia's 5G solution.
  
• The main 5G licenses were awarded to Singtel & M1/Starhub alliance while TPG Telecom Pte Ltd. is being allocated the remaining frequency spectrum in the millimeter wave band to roll out localized 5G networks.
• Starhub announced in August that they will be starting 6 month trial(August2020-Feb 2021) in the country with its customers getting early access to 5G network.
  

  2. South Korea: SK Telecom, Korea Telecom(KT) & LG U+

• Virtualization Journey/Status:
• The South Korean Telco operators got into the virtualization game pretty early with SK Telecom starting POCs around 2013 while KT & LG U+ working on their Virtualization or 5G plan since 2014.
• All the operators have built their Telco cloud based on Openstack. SK Telecom built a platform TACO (SK Telecom All Container OpenStack) using Openstack's Airship project along with Openstack Helm. LG U+ selected Wind River Titanium Cloud network virtualization platform which leverages Openstack & KVM. KT partnered with AT&T in 2017 for utilizing their expertise with NFV and SDN for their 5G deployment. KT utilized OpenDaylight to deploy SDN WAN and Red Hat Openstack for their NFV Infra.
  
• In 2015, SK Telecom selected Samsung as sole vendor for NFV deployment for its dedicated IOT network.
• Also, in 2015, LG U+ selected Affirmed Networks (now Microsoft) for virtualization of their Mobile network for 5G & IOT.
• SK telecom along with Nokia implemented world's first Cloud RAN solution/ SDRAN (Software Defined RAN) solution in a commercial network.
• SK Telecom built an in house MANO solution called T-MANO and planned to make T-MANO's API publicly available.
  
• LG U+ rolled out NFV based routing solution for its 5G network using Juniper's virtual route reflector capability within vMX and EX4300/EX2200 Ethernet Switches.
• Korea Telecom started 5G tests in 2017 using Ericsson's vRAN & with even AT&T for NFV/SDN related tests & Verizon for live hologram call use case. In 2019 KT started 5G NFV trials with Nokia.
  

•  5G News:
  
• SK Telecom partnered with Bharti Airtel(India) to jointly work for 5G, NFV, SDN and IoT. Both organizations will work on the standards and enabling ecosystem for introduction of these technologies from Indian perspective.
• SK Telecom selected Samsung, Ericsson & Nokia for 5G rollout and later turned on its 5G network in April 2019 using Ericsson's Cloud packet core.
  
• SK telecom has partnered with Microsoft for joint 5G-based cloud gaming solution.
• Also, SK telecom teamed up with AWS for world's first 5G Edge Cloud  to run 5G MEC services.
  
• LG U+ selected Ericsson's Cloud packet core and RAN solution for 5G deployment in 2019.
• KT deployed 5G using RAN from Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia and 5G Core from Samsung and Cisco.
  
• All South Korean operators had turned on full 5G commercial services in the country in April 2019 with initial limited activation of services in Dec 2018.
  
• SK Telecom appears to be leading the race as they have also decided to collaborate with Nokia, Ericsson & Samsung for joint research and development in advanced 5G and “6G” mobile network technologies.

   3. Japan: NTT Docomo, au by KDDI, Softbank & Rakuten

• Virtualization Journey/Status:
• Existing Operators in Japan -NTT Docomo and KDDI began their NFV strategy in 2014/2015 with NTT Docomo starting their NFV feasibility in 2014 and conducting trials in 2015 while KDDI also conducted PoC in 2014 with Wind River using their Openstack based Titanium Server.
  
• NTT Docomo for their NFV Trial selected Ericsson, Fujitsu and NEC.
  
• In March 2016, NTT had rolled out world's first multi vendor ETSI NFV commercial system using Ericsson's Openstack based VIM and VNFs from Nokia, NEC & Fujitsu. By 2018, Docomo confirmed that their Capex was down 10% because of NFV adoption with 25% of commercial nodes virtualized.
  
• Also, in 2016, Docomo partnered with Ericsson & Intel to build a 5G trial environment in central Tokyo.
  
• Softbank implemented their cloud transformation project in 2015/16 time frame using Ericsson's Openstack based Cloud Execution Environment and Cloud Manager for Orchestration. As part of the transformation Ericsson's vMME was also deployed.
• Also, Softbank partnered with Affirmed networks to deliver IoT services and mobile connectivity to Enterprise customers.
  
• Rakuten is a new entrant in Japan market moving from eCommerce earlier into Telecom now. As a greenfield operator Rakuten is building world's first End to end cloud native mobile network for 4G and 5G.
  
• Rakuten has partnered with firms such as Nokia, Altiostar, Cisco, Mavenir, Intel, Qualcomm, Airspan and NEC for setting up the 5G solution. In April 2020, Rakuten has launched 4G services in Japan.
  

•  5G News:
  
• KDDI selected Nokia and Ericsson for its 5g network along with Cisco's Virtualized Packet core for 5G in 2019. KDDI also formed a Joint Venture with Nokia for cloudified RAN in 2020.
  
• In 2020, KDDI also tested 5G Cloud Native CI/CD pipeline from Ericsson .
• Docomo NTT was first to launch 5G in Japan in March 2020 with target of 500 base stations covering 150 locations around the country by June and another 500 cities in 2021, and upto 20000 base stations by 2022/23.]
• Docomo went with Ericsson, Nokia, NEC and Fujitsu for its 5G network elements.
  
• KDDI also launched 5G in March 2020 with plan to install 10,000 base stations by the end of March 2021 and another 10,000 by the end of March 2022.
• Softbank launched 5G in March 2020 end using Ericsson & Nokia 5G RAN. Also, Softbank selected Ericsson 5G core for its 5G Standalone network in July 2020
• In addition to 5G launch, Softbank is working with Nokia since Feb 2020 in completing the world first 5G connected Car test.
  
• Rakuten intended to launch 5G services in June 2020 after initial delays in 2019, however due to Covid 19, the launch is again delayed to September 2020.

Disclaimer:

The details presented above is based on data available online.The references used are available in the hyperlinks for Japan while for Singapore and South Korea on https://matelecom.blogspot.com/p/references-road-to-network_7.html