Finland-based telecoms kit vendor, Nokia, has announced that Ooredoo Qatar has launched a Nokia-powered cloud-native core network for commercial 5G services, allowing the operator to provide superior mobile broadband services to its roughly two million subscribers in the Gulf state.
The new core network facilitates automation for improved network efficiency and streamlined network management. In addition, the transformation of the core network also enables Ooredoo Qatar to bring new and exciting use cases such as Industrial IoT (IIoT), Voice-over-Broadband (VoBB), Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) to its subscribers.
According to the telco, Nokia’s equipment and professional services will help Ooredoo Qatar to scale its network more efficiently with automated operations and enhanced robustness.
The company said 5G technology demands a dynamic, agile and easily scalable core network, which can address the ever-increasing traffic without any impact on the performance.
Yousuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, Chief Operating Officer, Ooredoo Qatar, said: “We are delighted to reach this milestone by launching the state-of-the-art cloud-native 5G core network with Nokia for carrying 5G commercial services. Collaboration with Nokia, a global technology leader, will help us in providing low-latency, high-speed and content-rich services to our subscribers. This project is testament to our commitment to bringing the latest technology to our subscribers, in line with our goal of complete customer satisfaction, and reiterates our leadership position in the global 5G ecosystem.”
Nokia stated that the cloud-native core is essential to meet the critical business objectives of 5G, including better bandwidth and latency, the requirement of IoT, and providing new and exciting services that go beyond the traditional offerings of voice, broadband and messaging by service providers.
Henrique Vale, Vice President, Nokia Software Middle East and Africa (MEA), said: “The transformation of Ooredoo Qatar’s legacy core network to a fully cloud-native 5G core in a very short time frame demonstrates the strength of our end-to-end portfolio and exceptional delivery expertise. Ooredoo Qatar’s new core network will enable it to bring innovative and the latest use cases to its subscribers and also prepares the network for providing scalable 5G commercial services.”
Nokia AirFrame data centre hardware, CloudBand Application Manager, CBIS OpenStack Software, Voice and Cloud Packet Core Virtual Network Functions, and Nuage Networks Software Defined Networking solutions were all included as key parts in upgrading Ooredoo Qatar’s core network.
More than 10 virtualised network functions (VNFs) are deployed on the cloud platform, covering data, voice, subscriber management registers and policy control enabling voice and data services. The new cloud core network supports 5G non-standalone (NSA) architecture and provides a smooth transition to a 5G standalone network architecture.
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