19 December 2016, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, today announced its cooperation with multinational telecommunications company, Telefónica, to jointly build a large scale vIMS network in Latin America. This network will cover seven countries in Latin America (Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Uruguay) to provide Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and VoWiFi services for Telefónica customers.

Telefónica Group is one of the largest telecommunications company in the world, providing telecom services in countries across Europe and Latin America. With the rapid development of Telefónica’s LTE services, deploying VoLTE and VoWiFi services has become an important for operation and development. Within this cooperation, ZTE will deploy comprehensive vIMS-based VoLTE/VoWiFi networks for Telefónica in seven countries in Latin America. The solution will be deployed as VNF (Virtual Network Function) over ZTE virtualization infrastructure.

ZTE's vIMS solution possesses carrier-grade commercial capability for product performance and security & reliability. It enables seamless integration with Telefónica's legacy networks, and is the first step within Telefónica UNICA virtualization program where a smooth migration to UNICA infra cloud capabilities will be reached following extensive test in Telefónica LAB. ZTE is already cooperating with Telefónica as a key NFV supplier and has already reached onboarding capabilities over UNICA infra solution.

"vIMS is part of ZTE's Cloud UniCore solution, providing Telefónica with cutting-edge and practical virtualisation solutions," said Ziyang Xu, president of ZTE's telecom cloud and core network products. "We are cooperating with Telefónica in ensuring a smooth integration of our IMS NFV towards UNICA infra cloud platform. ZTE will gradually create a simpler, more flexible and more open network for operators."

ZTE is committed to the research and development of network virtualisation technology. Thus far, ZTE has deployed over 100 commercial/trial Cloud UniCore offices worldwide, and carries out deep cooperation in the deployment of virtualised networks with Vodafone, Telefónica, Airtel Africa Group, VimpelCom, Deutsche Telekom, Telenor, China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and other mainstream operators.