The company formerly known as Active Broadband Networks recently made a deal with CenturyLink, one that will give CenturyLink a lot more capability in the market. It offered up a slate of strategic networking assets, and with these assets, CenturyLink can activate a new set of tools and spur on its own internal development.
With the new assets, CenturyLink is poised to step up efforts to automate the network and move several of its network functions to the cloud, while also providing new services to its customer base in the form of increasingly popular services like software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV). The company formerly known as Active Broadband Networks was actively engaged in using SDN and NFV alike, using the systems to focus on broadband edge solutions. With CenturyLink's acquisition, meanwhile, these tools can go to the customers, and CenturyLink can also focus on virtualizing a variety of its core network functions.
This is actually part of a larger strategy, which CenturyLink first announced back in October 2015. The larger strategy calls for CenturyLink to bring more network virtualization online and give customers access to more SDN and NFV services. CenturyLink, to that end, has been working on a complete end-to-end network platform offering these tools, as well as self-service applications complete with available on-demand services.
The chief technology officer and executive vice president at CenturyLink, Aamir Hussain, commented “This acquisition provides us with people and technology resources that will help us continue to develop and implement our platform strategy and integrate SDN and NFV technology into our network. Moving services into the cloud, particularly at the network edge, is essential as we continue to focus on providing our customers with a wide variety of virtualized network functions that help them more effectively manage their business.”
While some believe that SDN isn't quite “ready for prime time,” NFV has been a part of a lot more action in recent days, and both are gaining ground as a new way for companies to get access to high-end network services without having to put in the necessary infrastructure to support such operations. With CenturyLink's new acquisition, its ability to offer these services has expanded as well, and that makes CenturyLink's offerings more likely to be put to use by customers in the field.
When a company can offer more tools, it tends to make that company more attractive to users in the field. It allows for that one-stop shopping effect of added convenience and a perception that the company can more readily handle any issues that may come up. It will be interesting to see if CenturyLink can build on that perception, but knowing what we know so far, it's a safe bet that it will.
Edited by
Alicia Young
