Viavi inks 5G testing deal with telecom operator KT

KT-telecom-iphone
Test and measurement company Viavi Solutions announced its 5G testing deal with telecom operator KT for supplying xSIGHT Customer Experience Assurance (CEA) platform to support the development of innovative network technologies and services.

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KT is planning to deliver 5G services at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018. Generation of IoT service revenue is one of the targets for KT.

KT aims to implementing innovative network technologies to meet the complex and contradictory requirements of 5G and IoT — such as massive data processing, as well as varying bandwidth and latency for different devices and applications — on one network.

The main strategy of KT is to make investment in software-defined infrastructure (SDI) to enhance user experience. The telecom carrier has launched the SDI Open Eco Alliance to develop, standardize, and test SDI core technologies in all areas of infrastructure from core network to access network.

Recently, KT inaugurated the NFV Open Lab at its Woo-myon facility in Seocho-gu, Seoul to bolster collaboration among companies such as Cisco, HPE, Samsung and Viavi Solutions.

“The paradigm shift from hardware to software is taking place in network infrastructure due to the 5G and IoT era. We have established the NFV Open Lab to create a vital ecosystem for software-defined network innovation,” said Han Won-sik, SCM Strategic Manager, KT.

Viavi’s xSIGHT will provide analytics on impact to customer experience. xSIGHT is Viavi’s customer experience assurance portfolio including an analytics platform fed by agents distributed throughout the network.

The agents — deployable as physical units or virtual functions — passively analyze traffic in real time, build network and application performance metrics and selectively store traffic for troubleshooting purposes.

“Multiple cloud-based network functions can be automated and programmed to meet different use cases across entire end-to-end connections; yet mobile operators don’t currently have the infrastructure to take advantage of this,” said Sameh Yamany, chief technology officer of Viavi Solutions.