DALLAS, Sept. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Global
operator Orange plans to test AT&T's* platform for creating and
managing a software-defined network. AT&T built this platform,
called ECOMP, with a focus on making it accessible to other
operators and cloud developers. AT&T has committed to releasing
ECOMP as open source software in conjunction with the Linux
Foundation.
"ECOMP is a stake in the ground. It's a declaration that
networks of the future will be software-centric, that they'll be
faster, more responsive to customer needs, and more efficient,"
said Chris Rice, Senior Vice
President - Domain 2.0 Architecture and Design, AT&T. "Orange's
decision, as one of the leading international carriers in the
world, is a great endorsement of that approach."
"The analysis we conducted of ECOMP currently shows it to be
highly agile and comprehensive, a testament to the commitment that
AT&T has shown to address the key challenges that global
service providers all face," said Alain
Maloberti, Senior Vice President Orange Labs Network at
Orange. "We jointly believe that a platform like ECOMP needs a
strong and dynamic open source community to drive industry
adoption, and we will work with AT&T to create a community to
develop a reference software platform for automated network
orchestration and management. We plan to start experiments with
ECOMP firstly in a lab environment, to be followed by a field trial
as part of our On-Demand Networks program."
This supplements AT&T and Orange's recent announcement that
they will collaborate on open source and standardization
initiatives to accelerate the standardization of software-defined
networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV)
technologies.
Orange is the first telecom company to join AT&T's ECOMP
effort. This helps to validate the software-centric vision AT&T
adopted several years ago as a response to skyrocketing demand for
network capacity. Data traffic on AT&T's wireless network grew
more than 150,000% between 2007 and 2015. Businesses and consumers
expect more out of their networks than ever before. And those
demands are only going to increase over the next several years, as
new applications like 4K video, virtual reality and augmented
reality, and the Internet of Things take off.
When AT&T first started talking about a "software-centric
network" back in 2014, many people were confused by the concept.
But while the technology is complex, the concept is familiar. For
years, many of us carried individual gadgets for individual needs:
a camera, a portable music player, a video camera, a video game
machine. Many of us have replaced those specialized devices with
software apps running on a smartphone. It's faster, more efficient,
more upgradeable, and less expensive.
AT&T is doing the same thing with all the specialized
hardware appliances in our central offices. We're virtualizing
them. Those routers and switches and firewalls are becoming virtual
network functions running on standard servers. And we're giving our
customers online, software-based control of their own network
services. That's a software-centric network.
ECOMP, which stands for Enhanced Control, Orchestration,
Management and Policy, is the software platform AT&T created to
power its new network. ECOMP lets service providers quickly add
features and drive down operations costs. It gives service
providers and businesses anywhere more control of their network
services, and enables developers to create new services.
Ultimately, consumers benefit because the network better adapts,
scales and predicts how to make their connected experiences
seamless. That means that all the cool network-enabled technologies
coming in the next few years – from virtual reality to self-driving
cars to 4K video – will run more smoothly.
Building ECOMP took years. We at AT&T believe that we have a
significant head start in preparing for this software-centric world
of 2020. But we know innovation happens faster in an open,
collaborative world. This is why we are releasing ECOMP into open
source; so, others can use and build on what we've created so
far.
We're thrilled Orange is joining us in this movement to embrace
software-centric networking.
We hope for and expect more companies to test and adopt ECOMP.
It's one of the most powerful and sophisticated software platforms
we've ever built at AT&T. It will be a vital tool to meet the
demands of the data-hungry applications that are coming online. And
it will be crucial to fulfilling the potential of the
next-generation 5G wireless networks that we're researching and
testing now as we prepare for that world of 2020.
There will be a lot more news to share in the coming weeks and
months. Stay tuned.
*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by
subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T
brand and not by AT&T Inc.
About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) helps millions
around the globe connect with leading entertainment, mobile, high
speed internet and voice services. We're the world's largest
provider of pay TV. We have TV customers in the U.S. and 11 Latin
American countries. We offer the best global coverage of any U.S.
wireless provider.* And we help businesses worldwide serve their
customers better with our mobility and highly secure cloud
solutions.
Additional information about AT&T products and services is
available at http://about.att.com. Follow our news on Twitter at
@ATT, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/att and YouTube at
http://www.youtube.com/att.
© 2016 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved.
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*Global coverage claim based on offering discounted voice and
data roaming; LTE roaming; voice roaming; and world-capable
smartphone and tablets in more countries than any other U.S. based
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