Telecom network operator Vodafone has made investment in virtualized Evolved Packet Core (EPC) solutions to kick off Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications and Connected Car services over the global network infrastructure.
Affirmed Networks’ virtualized Evolved Packet Core (EPC) solutions are currently supporting live traffic related to these services in several of Vodafone’s most strategic markets including Brazil, Germany, Spain and the US.
Vodafone has more than 400 million subscribers and $38.34 billion revenues in 2014.
Since M2M connections are anticipated to increase to 40 billion by 2020, the resulting data traffic generated by M2M interactions, such as Connected Car services, require the uninterrupted real-time connectivity.
Vodafone chose to build their M2M network architecture based on Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) to benefit from reduced cost and high degree of agility and speed when provisioning new revenue generating services.
Vodafone Group’s deployment of Affirmed Networks’ NFV solutions for EPC across multiple markets provides scalability and allows NFV applications to adjust to traffic requirements without the need for extensive manual intervention and costly new hardware installations.
Scott Petty, director, Group Enterprise Technology at Vodafone, said: “After reviewing the legacy and emerging architectures available, we have decided for our EPC platforms that a virtualized solution from Affirmed Networks and VMware provides the network capacity and the service creation agility necessary to achieve business objectives.”
