T-Mobile US tapped Red Hat to power a common telecommunications cloud platform running across the carrier’s core and far edge operations in a move that provides some much-needed momentum toward propelling network virtualization opportunities.

The deal has T-Mobile US deploying Red Hat’s OpenShift Platform Plus to provide a standardized interface between the carrier’s infrastructure and applications. This will provide a unified environment for the development, testing, and deployment of new services sitting between T-Mobile US’ current network suppliers and those application developers.

Fran Heeran, VP of global telecommunications at Red Hat, explained that OpenShift Plus includes the OpenShift container-as-a-service (CaaS) platform for cluster management, cluster security, a persistent software-defined data storage element, and a central registry for software configuration and registry.

“It’s a full end-to-end suite that’ll be used to build the T-Mobile common cloud,” Heeran said, adding that this will provide the carrier with a single source of integration for application providers. “Being able to say to your application suppliers, that this is my T-Mobile cloud, this is what it looks like; these are my Kubernetes versions; these are my tooling; this is my CI/CD [continuous integration/continuous delivery], so every supplier of network application will adhere to the same standard. Having a single model, single supplier, was really important.”

The deal furthers T-Mobile US’ virtualization efforts. The carrier tied the move toward its goal of becoming a “dynamic techco,” which is the notion that operators can finally tap into their deep infrastructure and software to power advanced and revenue-generating services, plans that have been accelerated by the potential use of artificial intelligence (AI).

T-Mobile US has been less vocal on the minutia of those plans than some of its rivals but has touted services that take advantage of those efforts, including a recent push toward using AI to support a more efficient radio access network (RAN).

“AI-RAN will enable new AI algorithms to unlock the full potential of wireless networks,” T-Mobile US noted in a presentation. “These AI algorithms would be rapidly developed with software-defined RAN, trained on AI data centers, and fine-tuned with physically accurate digital twins. This will lead to dramatic improvements in spectral and energy efficiencies.”

Red Hat’s telecom focus Heeran said the T-Mobile US deal adds further support to Red Hat’s competitive position.

Red Hat has an established place in that current ecosystem. Verizon, for instance, uses OpenShift to support the deployment and management of container network functions (CNFs).

Red Hat “plussed” OpenShift in 2021, adding new security and management features that boosted the platform’s position as the hybrid-cloud alternative to cloud-specific offerings from the market’s cloud giants. That update positioned OpenShift Plus as that platform’s top offering.

The vendor has also been active in aligning its OpenShift and OpenStack platforms to work with established telecom network operator hardware systems. This includes modified iterations of OpenShift that allow the platform to operate in resource constrained edge locations.

These overall efforts took a more serious turn when Red Hat also became Nokia’s primary cloud infrastructure platform provider, which included taking on Nokia’s Container Services (NCS) and Nokia CloudBand Infrastructure Software (CBIS). That deal also eventually led to Heeran leaving Nokia late last year, where he was SVP and GM of core networks, cloud, and network services, for Red Hat.

Heeran, who prior to joining Nokia headed up telecom giant Vodafone’s cloud and automation initiative, said Red Hat’s deal with T-Mobile US continues that long path of virtualization by operators.

“We're seeing that there's a number of things we're doing in the pipeline right now with other customers that I can't mention that are looking to go down the same path as T Mobile,” Heeran said. “But, this is very noteworthy given T-Mobile’s size and scale, their position in the industry, their importance to the overall industry as well. They are one of the biggest networks in the U.S., if not the world, so to do this and put a common cloud in place is a significant move. I think we'll set the stage for the carriers to follow suit, and we hopefully get a bit more consistency in the industry as well as we go forward.”

That consistency has been a challenge as different vendors have been focused on building out their own support platforms. This includes differing efforts by hyperscalers, middle-tier platform providers like Red Hat, and API initiatives.

“The vision that we had two, three years ago around the move toward common cloud is now coming true,” Heeran said. “This is a really interesting additional data point, but one on a huge scale, and we have more that are coming up. We did a number of deals last year in this area – this is obviously one of the highlight deals that we that we did with T Mobile – but I think you'll see more of this, especially as a bigger carrier begin to do it, the others start to take note and follow suit as well.”

One benefit for operators that do follow this virtualization path is the ability to select vendors most tailored to their specific needs. This was recently shown by U.S. operator Boost Mobile, which removed its long-used CaaS platform from Broadcom’s VMware unit in favor of one from Wind River.

Andrew Sullivan, senior manager for virtualization and platform tech marketing at Red Hat’s Hybrid Platform Business Unit, previously told SDxCentral that Broadcom’s overhaul of its VMware operations has caused an inflection point for telecom operators.

“My personal, anecdotal experiences this last year has been a lot of the emotional, visceral reactions to what’s happened, and I think people are digesting that and now they’re figuring out what those next steps are and not doing so in a panicked manner,” Sullivan said. “It’s less of the ‘oh, I need to move right now,’ and more of the, ‘OK, what’s my strategy going forward and how do I want to handle virtualization? Do I want to continue to have a single vendor strategy? How do I want to diversify across multiple hypervisors?’”

Heeran added that the T-Mobile US deal is further evidence that those efforts are working and allowing operators to virtualize and monetize larger portions of their network resources.

“One of the things that we're very focused on is making sure that there's a clean mode of operation whereas the deployment is happening, we're working together with those partners on that, but also in the event of issues, once it's up and running, how do I resolve the issues. How do I avoid a vendor back-and-forth between the suppliers, and it's something we're working with our carriers to define that model with them,” Heeran said.