Telstra’s journey to a cloud-native 5G Core
This is the history of how Telstra - Australia’s leading telecommunications provider – is re-shaping it's core network for the best experience in 5G, using Ericsson’s container-based cloud-native dual-mode 5G Core.
Highlights
Telstra – Australia’s leading communication services provider – was one of the first mobile operators in the world to deploy cloud-native based applications in a mobile core network back in 2019. That was just the beginning of a major journey towards a cloud-native Core Network.
Telstra’s decision to widely deploy Ericsson’s cloud-native dual-mode 5G Core was largely driven by the company’s longstanding commitment to technology leadership, with 5G being a key enabler to support the company’s ambition to address the increasing digitalization of enterprises, industries and an emerging B2B2X segment.
The dual-mode 5G Core was delivered into production initially to accommodate the 5G non-standalone (NSA) and 4G traffic. The next step is to launch 5G standalone (SA), using a single software platform to manage both the EPC and the new 5GC network functions (NFs).
The new 5G Core (5GC) and NR SA will bring many new capabilities and benefits to both Telstra and its customers, enabling increased efficiency in managing the network and to create and introduce more advanced 5G services to market faster.
The challenge
Like many other leading communication services providers, Telstra has seen its average revenue per user (ARPU) flatten out in recent years. The 5G adoption presents the opportunity to expand their role in the communication services value chain beyond connectivity providers, what will allow top line growth with new user cases and applications offerings to consumers and enterprises.
To capture these growth opportunities however, it will require the adoption of new technologies such as cloud-native, network slicing, edge computing to mention some. The adoption of these technologies presents challenges to the different domains of the core network. Focusing particularly on the packet core network domain, the main challenges Telstra is addressing with this project can be summarized as:
Increasing network complexity and related OPEX over the years
The launching of many network services in the past has leaded to increased complexity in the core network over the years.
The introduction of 5G services, and all the new network functions (NFs) to support them, adds even more complexity. An optimization of the core network is needed to reduce OPEX and operational inefficiencies.
Increasing cost to cope with traffic growth
As network traffic grows, more equipment is needed to handle this traffic and this is especially visible in the user plane domain. As 5G penetration increases in the network, a more efficient user plane solution is needed to reduce network complexity, optimize CAPEX, as well as to deliver the low-latency expected from 5G use cases.
Long time for new services introduction and innovation
Increasing network complexity leads to longer time to create and deploy new services. This results in long cycles between ideation, delivery, and monetization of new services.
To capture the new business opportunities enable by 5G, Telstra needs to adapt its core network to deliver innovation faster.
Network readiness for automation and orchestration
The legacy EPC network is limited to realize Telstra’s ambition of network and processes automation, and the ability to be able to quickly deploy new services.
As 4G and 5G will co-exist for a long period of time, automation and orchestration capabilities needs to be brought to the whole network, and not just 5G, in order to tackle the challenges of OPEX optimization and agility for new services launch.
The solution
Telstra’s has taken a stepwise approach to their core network evolution to 5G Core. The Ericsson solutions that allowed a smooth evolution – while addressing the challenges mentioned before - were:
Ericsson Evolved Packet Core (EPC)
The existing EPC network (a combination of physical and virtual infrastructure) serving 4G was upgraded (software only) to add support to 5G non-standalone services.
Ericsson cloud-native EPC
First step into cloud-native adoption with, Ericsson Packet Core Controller and Packet Core Gateway to their network bringing MME and packet gateway NFs, respectively, based on cloud-native technology.
Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core
The next step was them to fully embrace the cloud-native adoption in their whole core network and tackle the challenges. To do that Telstra is deploying the dual-mode 5G Core solution, a common cloud-native platform which combines EPC and 5GC network functions for efficient TCO and smooth migration to 5G. Telstra is adopting it in two steps:
Step 1 – parallel to EPC network, supporting 4G and 5G NSA
Step 2 – expanding with 5GC Network Functions for 5G standalone support
Ericsson Cloud IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)
For the support of voice services in the 5G network, the already deployed Ericsson Cloud IMS system in Telstra’s network was upgraded (software only). Initially with EPS Fallback and on a later stage, once 5G standalone access is widely deployed across the country, Voice over NR will be used.
Ericsson NFVI
The already deployed Ericsson NFVI, was evolved with the contained management capabilities through Ericsson Cloud Contained Distribution (CCD) supporting a Kubernetes environment.
The result
The Telstra’s journey towards a cloud-native 5G Core network and 5G standalone - as their ultimate goal to provide the best 5G service experience in Australia - is being done in steps, with each step providing concrete benefits while paving the way to the next one.
The introduction of 5G non-standalone support in Telstra’s EPC network allowed them be fast to market to offer 5G services, and the early introduction of cloud-native based elements in their EPC network allowed them to get early insights on how to run a cloud native network. The decision to build a parallel cloud-native dual-mode 5G Core network with a greenfield approach will provide to Telstra an easier migration into the “one-core network” for all accesses and enable an easier introduction of 5G standalone and significant OPEX savings.
The cloud-native core network will also give Telstra all the speed and agility needed to bring new services to the market inline to their customer expectations and to pursuit new business segments to grow their top line.
Moreover, cloud-native will give the ability for the network to be able to continue to adapt and modify. Working with other technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) it will, for example, be possible to the network to adapt to traffic needs or even predict what the traffic needs are, as well as to self-heal, move around and re-deploy across the underlying cloud infrastructure.
