Software Telco Congress Concludes with New Discussions on the Future of NFV and SDN

Software Telco Ecosystem meets at premier NFV event to discuss the opportunities in software-based networks

Software Telco Congress wrapped up last week, concluding an exciting two days of educational programming and networking events focused on discovering the challenges and opportunities presented as carriers transition network hardware to software through Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). The event, held November 20-21, 2013, in Santa Clara, California, brought together the Software Telco Ecosystem that included Tier 1, 2 and 3 telco carriers, resellers and developers.

Transparency Market Research expects the global Software-Defined Networking (SDN) market to be worth $3.52 billion by 2018, and SNS Research estimates that SDN and NFV will be worth a whopping $4 billion next year alone. SNS Research expects to see compound annual growth of nearly 60 percent in this space over the next 6 years. This expected network transformation will not only be profitable, but enable networks to become more flexible, manageable, scalable and secure. Software Telco Congress sponsors, keynotes, speakers and attendees were able to collaborate, discuss and negotiate the maze of software telco options and figure out how the pieces fit together.

“The overwhelming message is that operators will migrate to a software model. It will not happen overnight, and the concept is in its infancy, but it is a conversation that will be core to operators' success,” said Erik Linask, group editorial director for TMC. “Dr. Craig Farrell, IBM's CTO of telecom, summed it up by stating that if you don't virtualize, you soon will not be selling product. It's telling that the vendor community believes in the software telco concept and is actively evangelizing it as the future of the industry.”

Software Telco Congress programming focused on how software-based models will be the core to operators’ success. Keynotes were presented by industry-leading companies such as ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, IBM, GENBAND, Lemko, Metaswitch Networks and SaiSei. Speakers and attendees discussed new terms, what they entailed and how they might fit into the vision of the software telco.

“NFV presents the greatest opportunity of the decade for carriers to more nimbly, flexibly and cost-effectively provide services. Software Telco Congress provided this industry a forum to discuss NFV implementation strategies, current and expected challenges and benefits and the latest technologies and solutions,” said Rich Tehrani, TMC CEO and conference chairman. “The discussions that took place at Software Telco Congress are helping to shape the future of NFV, and we’re looking forward to seeing those discussions put into action.”

Software Telco Congress is supported by Diamond Sponsors ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent and Metaswitch Networks; Platinum Sponsors GENBAND, Saisei and Sansay; Gold Sponsors Lemko and Netronome; and Silver Sponsors Aculab and PortaOne.

For the latest Software Telco Congress news, updates and information follow on Twitter at @SoftwareTelco.

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