Huawei is working with China Mobile Hong Kong (CMHK) to migrate the operator’s services to a network functions virtualization (NFV)-based cloud core network. According to CHMK, the migration occurred during the past six months.

CMHK has deployed more than 20 network services in the cloud. Those services include IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), evolved packet core (EPC), diameter routing agent/mobile number portability, home subscriber server/home location register, and mobile switching center-server (MSC-S).

Huawei said that it is also working with CMHK on other services including network slicing and edge computing that will further transform CMHK’s network in preparation for 5G.

CMHK isn’t alone. In the United States, AT&T has been very vocal about its virtualization of the core. In June a company executive said that the operator had about 15 million wireless customers running on the virtualized core.

Plus, a recent Ericsson report notes that NFV is a necessity for making 5G successful. The report said that in 2015, deployments of NFV in the core mobile networks started occurring, and the first examples of services deployed with NFV include voice over LTE (VoLTE) and WiFi calling.