HKT, the telecom arm under PCCW Group, and Huawei have completed what they say is the industry’s first Home Subscriber Server (HSS)/ Voice over LTE (VoLTE) cutover, paving the way for the full integration of the HKT and CSL mobile core networks.
In a joint statement, the companies said the HSS/VoLTE cutover was the first step of a series of migrations for integrating the two mobile core networks of HKT and CSL into a newly built integrated core network.
The integration is a strategic move that followed HKT’s acquisition of CSL to unify user experience with a homogenous and simplified service set.
The long-term plan is to enable HKT to offer advanced services, more extensive roaming coverage and higher data speeds, said the companies in a joint statement.
The entire network integration is expected to be completed in 2016.
“This first migration was the most critical and difficult in the entire integration as a live, dynamic database for several million CSL subscribers had to be transferred from the HSS, which was considered as the brain of a mobile network,” said the statement.
The VoLTE network migration encompassed IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and circuit switched domains, including the core 2G/3G/4G/IMS HSS.
A dedicated team from HKT and experts from Huawei spent around nine months building the new integrated core network and planning for this cutover, including initial design, equipment installation and commissioning, systems integration and testing, as well as user acceptance testing.
HKT and Huawei described the migration as “a huge success” given its unprecedented scope, technical complexity and extensive coordination between two vendors.
“Without any precedence to take reference from, this migration was believed to be the world’s first live migration of 2G/3G/4G/IMS HSS plus IMS/VoLTE cutover from one vendor to another,” said the statement.