Today, mobile broadband data is growing at an annual rate of 40-50% per year in the U.S. and other regions globally. Mobile service providers address these rapidly expanding traffic volumes through deployment of additional network functions, which will be a significant capital expenditure challenge. The nature of that mobile broadband data traffic is also evolving with new services including new video applications, connected cars and the Internet of Things. This rapid capacity growth and increasing traffic diversity in LTE networks stresses the assumptions of existing network architectures and operational paradigms.
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) provides a new path that can increase the flexibility required by mobile service providers and network operators to adapt and accommodate this dynamic market environment. NFV is a new operational approach applying well-known virtualization technologies to create a physical commercial off-the-shelf distributed platform for the delivery of end-to-end services in the context of the demanding environment of telecom network infrastructure and applications.
This white paper originally published on 4G Americas website