Empowering societies with our network technologies

Network technologies are used in most of the services we offer, including public and private mobile networks. These include networks based on 5G, fixed networks based on fibre, cloud networks, virtual private networks, IoT, interconnect and security services. Telenor is working with partners to constantly develop all these services for improved customer experience and innovation.

Service innovation with the mobile core network

The mobile core network is the brain of our mobile network. It sits between the radio network and external services, such as the internet, public cloud and video streaming services. It controls users’ access to services, their authorisation, capacity, priority and security.

Telenor is constantly modernising the mobile core network. A major shift in recent years has been to become cloud native, enabling higher flexibility, automation, scalability and programmability. This enables Telenor to innovate and deliver new and differentiated mobile services to customers.

Examples of new services are dedicated networks to enterprises, such as the military or utilities, in the form of network slices and mobile private networks. Cloud-based mobile core networks also enable more self-service for customers to order and modify their mobile service instantly on demand, such as changing the quality or priority, adding users or devices, and enabling digital applications.

In addition to the public mobile network service, we deliver mobile private networks to enterprises. These come in different forms and we need flexibility to scale them. They can run in hundreds of cloud servers in central locations, while only a single edge cloud server may be needed at the customer’s premises. Automation is used in all stages to deploy, configure, scale, heal and operate the mobile core networks, and is critical for speed, quality and scale.

As an example, we provide low latency communication to ambulances by distributing our core networks, leveraging cloud technologies closer to the ambulance locations. As another example, we provide private networks that are fully autonomous in the premises of factories, to achieve low latency and tolerate loss of internet connectivity.

Empowering societies with new connectivity and beyond

We are empowering societies by connecting people to what matters most. People in need of high capacity or low latency are empowered by Telenor’s mobile network services based on 5G and earlier generations. People in rural or remote areas, or at sea, are empowered by our satellite network or wide area mobile network coverage. Enterprises such as factories and hospitals are empowered by our highly secure mobile private networks, combined with edge cloud, running Telenor or partner applications, such as video surveillance or robotic control.

Telenor also empowers societies with security services, using our network technologies such as secure cloud storage, secure network access, secure cloud connect and network privacy. We also provide IoT services that empower different industries, such as fish farming, forestry, automotive, health, maritime and utilities.

Co-creation with partners and customers

We work with several partners to stay at the forefront of network technologies. Example partners are providers of radio, core and transport network technologies, providers of cloud solutions and services, and providers of applications and services valuable for our customers and Telenor. We co-create with our partners and often in collaboration with our customers, bringing forward new innovative solutions and services.

One example is the co-creation, together with several software and network technology vendors, to develop services that empower the Norwegian Defence. All partners work in a joint and open collaborative spirit developing network technologies such as edge cloud, mobile private networks and network slicing.

Increasing flexibility and innovation

Telenor supports openness in network technologies and solutions to increase flexibility and innovation. As an example, we support the Open RAN initiative, which is a shift that transforms the radio access network architecture into open, intelligent, cloudified and interoperable radio components. Telenor believes this shift will lead to benefits in operational advantages due to automation and fewer site visits, improved performance, optimised power consumption and cost efficiency.

Another approach to increase openness is that we use open-source technologies to provide many of our services. Cloud platforms based on open-source technologies such as Kubernetes and Openstack have the benefit of better interoperability between vendor solutions. This is of particular importance when embracing cloud native, as industry de-facto standard solutions are usually based on open-source technologies. Openness and interoperability between system components from different providers is important to develop new and innovative services combining multiple systems.