Huawei revealed the construction of a Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) lab that will allow operators and equipment manufacturers on three continents to trial NFV, software defined networking (SDN) and cloud computing technologies.
The Chinese equipment manufacturer's NFV Open Lab will comprise three separate facilities in China, Germany, and the U.S. that will focus on integrating telecom NFV, SDN and cloud technologies, conduct tests of the technologies, provide a technical showcase, and produce certification for the nascent NFV industry.
A Huawei statement explains that the "NFV Open Labs will bring an environment that will help ensure that NFV solutions and carrier grade infrastructure are compatible with emerging NFV standards and with the Open Platform NFV source (OPNFV)."
OPNFV is an industry working group established in September to define an open source reference platform for NFV that features companies including Huawei, ZTE, Nokia Networks, Telecom Italia, and Vodafone among its members.
Huawei said its Open Lab will "advance the pace of the industry by providing integration and innovation lab services," that will assist the OPNFV's work to "ensure device consistency, performance, and interoperability."
The company separately revealed its vision of what 5G technology should be. Speaking at The Global Mobile Broadband (MBB) Forum 2014 in Shanghai, rotating CEO Eric Xu said the next generation technology is today at the same stage LTE was a decade ago, and that 5G technology should be devised in a way that strengthens mobile internet access.
Xu also noted that 5G will be tasked with improving mobile broadband services by meeting the requirements of high spectrum rates and peak data rates, a large number of connections, and latency of less than 1 millisecond.
Achieving such goals will enable mobile operators to increase their ability to support the Internet of Things via wireless networks, Xu noted, so allowing a greater number of connections to be provided.
For more:
- see Huawei's NFV lab announcement
- view this separate 5G statement
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