Understanding Road blocks for Telco’s NFV Commercialization, an Architect’s perspective

CommSP’s shift towards virtualization started since 2012 but 5years down the road still we do not find large workloads running on NFV/SDN. There are clear indications indirectly given by vendors to either move to Vendor Siloed  NFV solutions or to slow down the NFV commercialization. It is also believed that with more and more traffic on NFV will reduce the performance. In other words the Open NFV Solutions are not meeting Telecom Service requirements at scale. 

Saad Sheikh

Chief Architect at Saudi Telecom Company (STC)

MEC as enabler of Telco’s Digital Transformation 

During the last decade globally Telco’s have seen an outburst of Data traffic almost quadrupling every year however during same Telco’s were not smart enough to monetize the value gain which moved more and more upwards in all this time. This left Telco’s to just act as a Pipe Line having less visibility on Services and offerings from OTT. To make Telco Business and lucrative just like Software companies back in 2012 the Telecom industry leading by many T1 Operators started a move toward Virtualization/NFV I to convert legacy business to a SaaS company.

Saad Sheikh

Chief Architect at Saudi Telecom Company (STC)

Key Industry Challenges and devising new models for Business enablement using End to End Network Slicing

Network Slice is a concept within 3GPP CT and its history can be traced back to R13/R14 with the introduction of static Slicing in LTE networks. It is being said that the real business case of Network Slicing will come with the arrival of 5G , although in Rel15 Stage3 release in Dec, 2017 still the complete definition with use case mapping is missing but it is being said R16 Stage3 coming in Q2 2018 it will be available . 5G network must address the Network Slicing from dynamic slicing point of view which can be provisioned, managed and optimized through Orchestrator in real time for different use cases like Massive IoT, Ultra Reliable and enhanced MBB.

Saad Sheikh

Chief Architect at Saudi Telecom Company (STC)

NFV/SDN Platform or Application Driven? Set Right Focus to reach the final Goal

As industry enters the Industry4.0 and many world leaders as WEF talk about their country commitments and support for Transformation it is evident we are entering an Era of disruption at scale. However still the true benefits of CSP transformation are not quantified and it is not sure what is told in theory has same significance in practice? 

Saad Sheikh

Chief Architect at Saudi Telecom Company (STC)

Defining the Roads to 5G System Security Architecture

So finally the Frenzy of 5G Networks and how they will bridge the gaps between different industries and societies seems finally come to materialization .As most of the Tier1 Operators are working to build the Use cases that will support for early launch and market capture catalyst for early movers in the area still the area of 5G security seems gloomy with still lacking much detailed standards being output by ETSI and other SDO’s compared to 5G technology itself.

Saad Sheikh

Chief Architect at Saudi Telecom Company (STC)