Nokia on Wednesday 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 Qatar.
The new core network facilitates automation for improved network efficiency and streamlined network management. 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 WiFi (VoWiFi) to its subscribers.
5G technology demands a dynamic, agile, and easily scalable core network, which can address the ever-increasing traffic without any impact on the performance. 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.Nokia AirFrame data center 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 virtualized 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.
Yousuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, COO, Ooredoo Qatar
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.
Henrique VAle, VP of Nokia Software for Middle East and Africa
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.
