STARHUB is upgrading some important technology to better manage exploding levels of data growth. The local telco will upgrade its core and access networks with software-defined networking (SDN) technology.
The two-year project will allow it to respond better to corporate customers' need for more data capacity. It will also support Singapore's smart nation initiatives.
Tech companies Cisco Systems and Huawei will be involved in this project, said StarHub in a statement on Tuesday.
The telco did not disclose the amount of investment in this project, which comes under its capital expenditure for networks and infrastructure.
Every year, StarHub spends about 13 per cent of operating revenue on capital expenditure.
Its chief technology officer, Mr Mock Pak Lum, said the telco's enterprise business has expanded in the last few years and will soon be its No. 2 revenue contributor.
"To accelerate our growth, among other things, we need to enhance the efficiency of our network with SDN," he said. "This will improve our ability to deliver bandwidth dynamically, and rapidly offer customisable solutions to our corporate customers." Previously, when enterprise customers' needed extra data capacity, its engineers had to look at multiple management systems to look for the information. This is a complex operation because the telco has equipment from various vendors and they do not "talk to each other".
Engineers even had to resort to spreadsheets to look for the information they need before they can respond to customers.
"These are all manual processes leading to lots of overheads. In future, with the SDN, we will have one central software dashboard where we see all data inventory we have.
"We can then offer on-demand services as fast as a day because we can configure requirements on the go. Our time to market with new product offerings will also be shorter," said Mr Mock.
StarHub and Huawei have signed a memorandum of understanding to build a multi-vendor SDN network, the statement added.
This article was first published on Apr 30, 2015.
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