Having largely accomplished its original mission of moving carriers to voice-over-IP (VoIP), the i3Forum is now expanding its scope to help wholesale carriers adopt network functions virtualization (NFV).
The i3Forum is a nonprofit group for wholesale voice carriers. Its members include AT&T, BT, CenturyLink, Deutsche Telecom, Orange, Verizon, and Vodafone. It was created to help voice wholesalers — carriers that create interconnections between each other’s networks — migrate away from time division multiplexing (TDM).
The i3Forum recently published a “Primer on NFV,” which says wholesalers will likely deploy NFV first in greenfield networks. The paper says network elements where NFV can make sense are:
- Evolved packet core (EPC) — for mobile broadband access
- IP infrastructure for LTE IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) — for the SIP infrastructure behind VoLTE
- Session border controllers — for IP-based voice network interconnection
The paper also gives some potential NFV use cases for wholesalers.
Read more at SDxCentral.
