BT Taps Canonical to Boost NFV on 5G Core

BT, the United Kingdom-based telecom provider, is starting to put the pieces together for a 5G core that it plans to introduce in 2022. The company tapped Canonical to provide the open source virtual infrastructure manager that will be part of BT’s NFV program. Canonical develops and manages Ubuntu, the open source operating system, and has extended the capabilities of that platform on its Charmed OpenStack architecture, which facilitates private clouds running on Ubuntu. The announcement dovetails a similar contract BT landed in June with Juniper Networks to support its move to a cloud-based, unified, and virtualized network infrastructure. “BT’s 5G core will be built on Canonical’s Charmed OpenStack and utilize Canonical’s open source tools to automate the deployment and operations of its infrastructure,” Neil McRae, BT Group’s chief architect, wrote in response to questions. BT will also use Ubuntu Advantage, Canonical’s service package for Ubuntu, for ongoing management and support of its 5G core, McRae explained.