HCL Technologies said that it has opened a center of excellence (CoE) in partnership with IBM to help communication service providers (CSPs) in modernizing their network infrastructure, reimagining service delivery, and streamlining operations.

According to HCL Technologies, the center of excellence is a virtual hub for developing offerings to help telco clients in transforming their networks, which include telco core, virtualized radio access networks (vRAN), open radio access networks (ORAN), edge modernization, private networks, and 5G labs.

The Indian IT services provider will also utilize and deploy products in Telco Network Automation such as HCL SoFy, HCL ANA, Actian, DRYiCE MyCloud, and HCL BigFix to further expedite the performance of the network and optimize the transformation process for clients.

Inhi Cho Suh — IBM General Manager for Strategic Partnerships said: “The center of excellence for telecommunications aims to combine HCL Technologies’ deep industry experience and IBM’s open hybrid cloud approach to provide much-needed technical resources and support for clients in the industry.

“By growing our alliances with ecosystem partners such as HCL, we are seeking to bring solutions for companies in regulated industries to help modernize their operations through accelerated cloud adoption.”

HCL Technologies will set up an IBM Telco Initiative Practice team, as part of the initiative, for developing network outsourcing and modernization solutions using the open hybrid cloud approach of IBM. This includes an open, hybrid cloud architecture called IBM Cloud for Telecommunications, which has been built on IBM Cloud Satellite and uses Red Hat OpenShift for meeting the needs of the telco sector.

Additionally, HCL Technologies and IBM will work together to integrate associated IBM Cloud technology like IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps, IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation, and IBM Edge Application Manager into HCL Telco offerings and industry solutions.

Kalyan Kumar — Chief Technology Officer and Head, Ecosystems, HCL Technologies said: “Our joint solutions will be designed to help telecom players accelerate the modernization of their network infrastructure. This is not only about automation; CSPs can build their cloud platform and bring much-needed flexibility to their network functions.

“Along with IBM, we are looking to help accelerate the transition to 5G, drawing on our service excellence and unmatched domain expertise to develop end-to-end transformation solutions.”

Earlier this week, HCL Technologies had introduced two new 5G applications for helping mobile network operators in optimizing customer experience and reduce the consumption of energy across their 4G and 5G infrastructure.

  HCL Technologies, IBM, Inhi Cho Suh, Kalyan Kumar