ZAIN KSA and Huawei have announced a proof of concept solution for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), one of the first in the Middle East, which demonstrates Huawei's leading network optimization technologies that greatly increase the efficiency of resource utilization and deployment while decreasing service launch times. "Working with our partners, Zain KSA is striving to bring cutting edge technologies to the Saudi market," said Sultan Abdulaziz AlDeghaither, Chief Technology Officer at Zain KSA. "The large investments on our state-of-the-art 4G network is part of our contribution in the transformation of the national economy especially when it comes to digital and technical development." NFV decouples software from hardware and abstracts functions, freeing networks from the performance limitations of individual hardware. Network elements (NEs) will share a unified hardware platform and create a resource pool in which resources can be flexibly shared. Put simply, NFV will greatly increase the efficiency of resource utilization, deployment, and O&M, and decrease service launch time. Zain KSA and Huawei will also be showcasing Cloud integration, which enables Zain to gain faster time to market for new services, increase its operations efficiency and easily deploy ICT services such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE), Internet of Things (IoT), Rich Communication Services (RCS) and other innovative solutions. "Huawei is pleased to be working in partnership with Zain KSA to deploy cutting edge technologies that help it deliver advanced services to its business customers across the Kingdom," said Ramadan Ding, CEO of Huawei KSA. "As enterprise networks begin to deliver better performance, agility and scalability, moving away from hardware-dominated network architectures becomes essential and Huawei is proud to be leading the way in NFV adoption." The proof of concept demonstrates Huawei's virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) and virtual IP Multimedia Subsystem (vIMS) solutions based on Huawei E2E Solution using Huawei's NFVI (FusionSphere & E9000), which is based on OpenStack, OPNFV and ETSI MANO. Fusionsphere improves Virtual Machine life cycle management and network function while adding enhanced performance and innovation by providing unified, intuitive operation and maintenance management capability. Zain recently launched the region's first commercial voice over WiFi (VoWIFI) service in Saudi Arabia developed in partnership with Huawei and enabling its customers to make and receive calls using their home WiFi or in public WiFi areas. The service utilizes WiFi's data connectivity rather than traditional telecom voice channels and provides enhanced user experience over Zain KSA's existing high
