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BroadForward installs a growing number of virtualized STPs, including unique container-based deployments

New wave of swap-outs of legacy systems for container-based STPs as operators push for cloud-based solutions

Amersfoort, 3nd November 2022

BroadForward points to the increasing interest from operators around the world in its virtualized 2G/3G and 4G signaling solutions. The company reports that it has replaced a record number of legacy STPs in almost every region, including tier-1 sized and even container-based cloud deployments of the BroadForward STP.

Although the sunset of 2G and 3G networks is planned in most countries, these networks are still widely used. According to the GSMA (“The Mobile Economy 2022”), 97% of the world’s population is still covered by 2G networks. While this will gradually decrease as operators move to 5G, these legacy environments will need to be kept running and maintained for years to come. Circuit-switched networks will eventually be switched off, but there are still many applications using 2G technology, such as mobile network inter-connectivity, IoT devices, feature phones etc. And with that, the need to maintain or even renew the network elements that support the 2G/3G networks, such as an STP, remains.

Operators each have different reasons for replacing their legacy systems. Initially, these were mainly related to End Of Life (EOL) situations and rationalization. Also, replacement of products from a High Risk Vendor (HRV) is common these days. In addition, a new wave of replacements has begun in which operators are pushing for cloud-based solutions to achieve a much lower cost base and a unified deployment architecture for their core network infrastructure. For legacy routers such as STP, this is difficult to achieve. While these products are (more or less) virtualized by most vendors, they cannot take the next step to run in a container in the cloud.

The BroadForward STP is by design a 100% software solution, supporting virtualization and cloud-, as well as containerized application deployment. And the latter makes the BroadForward STP unique. BroadForward is the first vendor to run live container-based STPs in the field.

BroadForward has extensive experience replacing various legacy vendor brands and offers service providers very attractive options to replace their legacy systems with container-based alternatives.

Taco Schoute, CEO of BroadForward, added “BroadForward is one of the few, if not the only one, to have built a fully software based STP from the ground up. Not only our 5G portfolio, but all our products can run on virtual machines or in containers. This enables operators to also deploy legacy signaling functions in a unified deployment architecture. All of our signaling network functions – including the STP – run on our GSMA GLOMO Award-winning converged software solution called BFX. With the current trend of moving core network functions to the cloud, we find ourselves at the sweet spot to support operators in replacing legacy products with a much more cost-effective and flexible alternative.”