2degrees and Nokia accelerate 5G delivery in NZ

2degrees has announced it is expanding its Voice Core relationship with Nokia in a six-year deal in which the New Zealand operator will tap Nokia’s containerised Cloud Native Communication Suite (CNCS) to accelerate the deployment of new 5G services and optimise its network resources.

CNCS is designed to make it easier for operators like 2degrees to deploy multiple vendors’ applications on the same cloud infrastructure, streamline network activities, enhance automation and minimise manual intervention. 2degrees will utilise CNCS to bring together multiple IMS voice 3GPP functionalities into a single cloud-native network function. It will be deployed on the Nokia Cloud Platform, which integrates a full set of Red Hat cloud products, including Red Hat OpenShift.

“We are happy to expand our relationship with Nokia as we continue to modernise our network,” said Stephen Kurzeja, CTIO at 2degrees. “This provides us with a much-simplified Core architecture that enables new monetisation and innovation pathways to enhance the subscriber experience and further optimise how 2degrees manages its network with new automation tools.”

As a leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift is integrated into the Nokia Cloud Platform to provide cloud-native and scalable infrastructure. By integrating with Red Hat OpenShift, operators have the option to scale their 5G network footprint and quickly introduce new services with enhanced capacity, performance, life cycle management, automation and energy management.

The modernisation will provide 2degrees with reduced infrastructure and carbon footprint, and lower operational costs through streamlined life cycle management. CNCS improves energy efficiency by 10–20%, relative to a standard IMS Voice Core, according to Nokia data.

“We are pleased to extend our collaboration with 2degrees with Nokia’s flexible and reliable cloud-native CNCS architecture,” said Wilson Maria, Head of Cloud and Network Services, Oceania at Nokia. “This will enable the rollout of new innovative services more quickly, securely, and without limitations in multi-cloud environments to meet the evolving and more demanding connectivity needs of 2degrees’ customers.”

As part of the agreement, 2degrees will integrate Nokia’s MantaRay Network Management solution for a consolidated network view that optimises network monitoring and management. 2degrees already leverages a variety of other Nokia 5G Core networking functions.

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