Telefónica is conducting NFV tests in partnership with Alcatel-Lucent. A new memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the companies renews and expands on an alliance announced in February 2014, which focused on Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand platform to advance NFV implementation. Under the new agreement, Alcatel-Lucent and Telefónica will investigate how mobile networks can be transformed to meet demands being placed on them by the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and increased customer connectivity.

Enrique Blanco Global CTO, Telefónica, said: “We are pleased to continue our work with Alcatel-Lucent on the use of NFV technologies to transform future networks. We have already seen an outstanding performance in the testing of Alcatel-Lucent’s VSR, showing that it delivers comparable performance to hardware-based routers. Use of these technologies will open up new opportunities as we continue innovating to exceed our customer’s expectations.”