Orange Polska, a convergent operator in the Polish market, and Amdocs, Monday announced a partnership to trial the ECOMP (Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management & Policy) software platform. Amdocs will serve as the technology integrator to support the project.
The objective is to assess ECOMP, initially for virtual services in Poland, and then globally across the Orange footprint (236 million customers in 28 countries). This is in response to the skyrocketing demand for network capacity and the subsequent need to transform current infrastructures to models based on cloud computing and network function virtualization (NFV) and to progress towards 5G.
ECOMP offers service providers the ability to design and operate “software-centric” networks running on virtual machines rather than on traditional, physical network architectures. Such networks provide improved scalability and extensive automation, and can adapt faster to customer needs with the quick addition and removal of features. By deploying ECOMP, service providers will gain more control of their network services, drive down operational costs and allow developers to more easily innovate with new network services. Ultimately, consumers benefit because the network will be able to better adapt and scale to meet their needs, as well as predict how to make their connected experiences seamless.
AT&T has committed to release ECOMP as open source software, in conjunction with the Linux Foundation. As such, ECOMP has a chance to become a leading standard for the industry. Orange was the first service provider to join AT&T in its efforts to standardise NFV and SDN platforms.
Orange Polska is conducting numerous tests with Amdocs to support the preparation and creation of a set of innovative virtual Customer Premises Equipment (vCPE) services for residential customers. A significant part of the vCPE features will be moved to a cloud environment and managed by the ECOMP platform. The tests will validate the capabilities and potential benefits of an ECOMP deployment within the Orange network.
Piotr Muszynski, VP Strategy & Transformation, Orange Polska
Virtualisation of the network is an inevitable process. By testing ECOMP at Orange Polska, we are preparing ourselves to become a software-driven company. In the future, these cutting-edge technologies will give customers completely new possibilities, such as the ability to self-activate and deactivate services, or to enjoy flexible rating, based on the time they consumed the service.
Alain Maloberti, SVP Orange Labs Networks
Amdocs brings unique expertise to early day ECOMP projects like ours because of their early involvement and commitment to AT&T’s ECOMP project: They participated in the development of the platform and they have a deep understanding of how to onboard network services and functions with ECOMP.
