| | October 20188CIOReviewBy Eric Gillenwater, VP and Business Head - US & Europe, airtelHOW WHOLESALE CARRIERS CAN LEVERAGE NFVANDSDN FOR DELIVERING AGILE, INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONSWith new carriers offering next-generation features at affordable price points, incumbent wholesale carriers today need to reimagine their offerings for sustained relevance. They must roll out new, value-for-money, differentiated services for diversifying revenue streams and enhancing customer satisfaction­while ensuring robust network security.As the adoption of next-generation digital wireless technology soars worldwide, the demand for high-speed data access and reliable voice services keeps rising. Network carriers, accordingly, have started coming up with solutions that enable collaboration and synchronization between varied network elements. However, they are struggling to effectively collect, store and manage the unprecedented volume of data, besides having to deal with inflexible analytics and unresponsive vendors.Also, the very nature of the new data-driven service portfolio is highly network dependent, throwing up a host of opportunities and vulnerabilities that network carriers must contend with. Carriers are, therefore, turning to solutions that help simplify their complicated legacy infrastructure and facilitate enhanced agility.The upcoming 5G revolutionIn order to meet these challenges, amid the upcoming commercialization of 5G, network carriers are turning to Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to orchestrate swift digital transformation. These technologies can enable wholesale carriers to overcome architecture-related obstacles and keep up with the rising demand for devices and data. NFV
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