• Vodafone and Huawei collaborating on new broadband gateway
• Completion of the second phase of validation in Portugal
• Developing a cloud-based broadband network gateway
• Uses the control and user plane separation (CUPS) architecture

There is much development and interest around Control & User Plane Separation (CUPS) architecture at the moment, which promises to offer improved capabilities for scaling, resilience and efficient IP address use. Whilst separating control plane and user plane functionalities is not exactly new, bringing the concept into the latest cellular architecture standards is providing new impetus to vendor developers and telco customers. For example, 3GPP Rel-14 baked in CUPS to make it a preferred core network feature of EPCs for operators

Vodafone and its network vendor partner Huawei have announced developments in applying CUPS to fixed broadband use cases. Huawei has been developing its cloud-based Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) solution for some time now, and is busy testing it with Vodafone. Phase I testing was performed in December last year and focused on 52 functional tests, while Phase II testing was completed in May this year (with news just released publicly). This second phase of testing was conducted on Vodafone Portugal’s service architecture and included a proof of concept (PoC) that demonstrated internet access and VPN services. It was designed to show how the solution could be used to evolve existing networks and included access, authentication and accounting for home broadband users in various user scenarios.

Vodafone and Huawei utilised virtual network functions (VNFs) as the control plane and added physical network functions (PNFs) as the user plane. The control plane integrates the user management functions of multiple BNGs and shifts their resources to the cloud. This enables the all-important automated service provisioning and network O&M, along with global resource sharing (because it’s cloud-based), elastic capacity scaling, flexible architecture adjustment and network capability exposure.

The cloud-based BNG solution is an implementation of Huawei's Intent-Driven Network (IDN) as it applies to the “cloudification” of network services. IDN – which is also generating a lot of interest from telcos and research groups – decouples legacy networks, as Huawei puts it “into an elastic, reliable bearer layer and an agile service layer”, thereby creating a simpler and more flexible architecture.

Key Quotes:

• “Cloud-based BNG is an effective way to improve network resource utilization and shorten time to market for new services,” said João Nascimento, CTO at Vodafone Portugal. “During this round of testing, we were able to verify the feasibility of evolving existing network devices to the cloud.”
• “This solution helps operators improve the efficiency of their network operations, reduce O&M costs and smoothly evolve network services to the cloud,” added Jeffrey Gao, President of Huawei's Router & Carrier Ethernet Product line.

Original Press Release:

Vodafone and Huawei Complete the Second Phase of Cloud-based BNG Validation

[Shenzhen, China, September 3, 2018] Vodafone and Huawei recently completed the second phase test of the cloud-based Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) solution in a fixed broadband scenario. This proof of concept was deployed in Vodafone Portugal's premises according to Vodafone Group guidelines, demonstrating the capability of Huawei's cloud-based BNG solution to evolve existing networks and lay a solid foundation for cloud-based BNG projects. The BNG solution used the Control & User Plane Separation (CUPS) architecture, which offers improved capabilities for scaling, resilience and efficient IP address use.

The phase I testing was performed in December 2017 and focused on 52 functional tests of the solution, while the phase II testing, completed in May 2018, focused on the Vodafone Portugal service architecture including internet access and VPN services. Both phase I and II have been completed successfully.

The scope of this proof of concept included access, authentication and accounting for home broadband users in various scenarios. It also included performance, reliability and security testing of cloud-based BNG systems. Vodafone and Huawei verified functionality of the cloud-based BNG solution using virtual network functions (VNFs) as the control plane and also using physical network functions (PNFs) as the user plane. The cloud-based BNG solution decouples the control and user planes of traditional BNG architectures. The control plane integrates the user management functions of multiple BNGs and shifts their resources to the cloud. In addition to automated service provisioning and network O&M, the solution deployment in the cloud also enables global resource sharing, elastic capacity scaling, flexible architecture adjustment and network capability exposure.

João Nascimento, CTO at Vodafone Portugal, said: "Cloud-based BNG is an effective way to improve network resource utilization and shorten time to market for new services. During this round of testing, we were able to verify the feasibility of evolving existing network devices to the cloud."

Jeffrey Gao, President of Huawei's Router & Carrier Ethernet Product line, stated: "Cloud-based BNG is an innovative implementation of Huawei's Intent-Driven Network in the context of network service cloudification. The Intent-Driven Network decouples traditional networks into an elastic, reliable bearer layer and an agile service layer. This creates a simple architecture enabling the rapid and flexible adjustment of resources. This solution helps operators improve the efficiency of their network operations, reduce O&M costs and smoothly evolve network services to the cloud."

Huawei and many leading operators have engaged in close cooperation to innovate cloud-based BNG solution, which has achieved staged achievements. In the future, Huawei will rely on its strong innovation strength and continuous R&D investment to help operators enable metro network cloudification transformation.

The fifth Ultra-Broadband Forum (UBBF 2018) will be held from September 10th to September 11th, 2018, in Geneva, Switzerland. UBBF this year has chosen ‘Intent-Driven Network: Maximize Your Business Value’ as the theme. By focusing on four hot topics ‘Premium Home Broadband, Reshaping User Experience’, ‘Cloud-and-Network Synergy, Enabling New Growth with B2B’, ‘Constructing 5G- and Cloud-based Simplified Networks’, and ‘Toward Optical Networking 2.0’, this event presents an opportunity to share business innovations and practices of Intent-Driven Network. For more information, please visit: www.huawei.com/en/press-events/events/ubbf-2018.