Hello everyone and welcome to ZD Tech, ‘s daily editorial podcast. My name is Pierre Benamou and today I will explain to you why network cores and their upgrade to 5G are becoming critical issues for carriers… but not only!
In mid-June, Bouygues Telecom made a bet on Swedish equipment manufacturer Ericsson to release the core of its 5G network during 2023. If this decision seems trivial to you, think again! This is actually extremely important for carriers who are counting on this upgrade to expand their next-generation mobile offerings and finally be able to offer the speeds that 5G promoters have praised so much in recent years.
If these partnerships are dictated by economic and technological logic, geopolitics also play an important role. Like many Western countries, France has worked in recent years to limit the participation of Chinese telecommunications giants, namely Huawei and ZTE, in the core networks of French operators.
Central element of networks
For the authorities, it is primarily a matter of limiting the weight of these Chinese companies, regularly suspected of colluding with Beijing, in the context of high tensions between the Western bloc and China. But the position of the French authorities in this dossier is also due to the important role played by core networks in the infrastructure of fixed and mobile networks.
For simplicity, we will analyze the telecommunications network. First of all, it is the access network, which means all the means that allow our terminals to connect to the network. This access network may follow the path of radio waves in the case of wireless networks, as well as fiber optic or copper cable in the case of fixed or wired networks. Operators rely on specialized information systems to manage and manage networks. And for everything else, you ask me? Well, the latter rely on network cores, which, as their name suggests, act as the central core of telecom networks.
They are responsible for managing access and their security, as well as identifying the subscriber, correctly routing calls to their destination or interconnecting with other networks. Enough to make it a critical element for carriers looking to upgrade and add 5G-specific technologies to make next-generation mobile technology essential.