The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) announced that T-Mobile (Poland) has achieved production roll-out of the ONF’s Open Mobile Evolved Core (OMEC) open source platform. It is the industry’s first deployment of a production-grade open source Evolved Packet Core (EPC).
The ONF launched OMEC in 2019, making available the first production grade, disaggregated, control-user plane separated (CUPS), 3GPP-compliant open source mobile core solution that can run on containers, virtual machines or bare metal. It provides a cornerstone for the ONF‘s COMAC (Converged Multi-Access and Core) project, developed to bring convergence to operators’ mobile and broadband access and core networks. It is based on and paired with COMAC Reference Design, which is now available for ONF Member review and feedback.
With OMEC, operators like T-Mobile Poland can take control of their networks. T-Mobile’s deployment demonstrates how operators and supply chain vendors who are willing to embrace open source can deploy solutions with disruptive value propositions in record time. T-Mobile Poland’s pioneering project demonstrates the tremendous value of taking an open source approach to transforming networks and paves a path for other operators to follow.
T-Mobile Poland is using OMEC’s gateway control, user plane and billing components to deliver a Fixed Mobile Substitution (FMS) service to its customers. The OMEC components provide all the necessary features and standard 3GPP interfaces for interconnecting to T-Mobile’s existing base stations, mobility management entities and lawful intercept platforms.
Michal Sewera, Head of the EPC Shared Service Center, T-Mobile Poland
Our OMEC deployment provides us with a lightweight packet core providing connectivity, billing and charging at scale for a large number of fixed mobile subscribers.
Pranav Mehta, VP of Systems and Software Research, Intel Labs
OMEC is optimized to leverage powerful performance and security enhancements, essential for 5G, and available in Intel Xeon processors, network adapters and switching technologies, including Data-Plane Development Kit (DPDK) and Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX).
