With the ringtones of Mobile World Congress still ringing in our ears and the prospect of SUSECON 2025 just around the corner, SUSE has detailed itsSUSE Edge for Telco 3.2 release
This update introduces what are said to be “differentiated product bundles” alongside a new Long Term Support (LTS) strategy, early access to new features for Radio Access Network (RAN) and advanced networking use cases.
SUSE Edge for Telco is a telco-optimised edge computing platform that delivers technologiesfor 5G core, vBNG, RAN and edge deployments.
The platform itself is designed to enableCommunicationService Providers (as opposed to cloud CSPs) to streamline operations, enhance scalability and integrate into cloud-native networks by integrating SUSE Security, SUSE Storage and an optional SUSE Virtualization add-on.
According to Keith Basil, general manager, Edge Business Unit at SUSE, with the ROI on 5G investments under scrutiny, CSPs are under immense pressure to reduce costs and accelerate revenue.
Disaggregated network architectures
Addressing this challenge requires greater disaggregation of traditional network architectures and the Linux Foundation Networking’s Project Sylva is tackling this issue by advocating for network cloud deployments built on best-of-breed open source technologies.
“SUSE Edge for Telco 3.2 is a very successful milestone in our journey to help Telcos modernise their networks and accelerate their innovation,” said Basil. “SUSE’s open source, cloud native platform is in production and successfully deployed in many countries. This release offers a number of new features, as well as technology-preview support for IPv6 and PTP/Time synchronisation, both of which are critically important for Telcos to achieve scale and performance.”
Basil suggests that by adopting a unified, open source CaaS layer such asSUSE Telco Suite, CSPs can eliminate the complexity of managing multiple vertically integrated telco stacks.
“As a governing board member of Project Sylva, SUSE is deeply aligned with the initiative and its broader open source community to address these technical challenges and optimise telco cloud infrastructure. SUSE Telco Suite is the foundational Telco platform that underpins the cloud-native CaaS offerings of multiple Tier-1 CSPs, including Orange,” notes the company, in a press statement.
As noted, SUSE Telco Suite introduces a new LTS strategy that guarantees full stack support for 24 months, providing customers greater stability and long-term planning capabilities
Packaged solutions
For RAN and edge clouds, SUSE Telco Suite offers a high-performance, real-time telco stack. It simplifies 5G rollouts, Open RAN adoption and edge computing while reducing complexity and costs. With pre-configured, open source solutions, SUSE helps CSPs automate, modernise and future-proof their telco cloud infrastructure.
SUSE says it also helps CSPs to shorten innovation cycles and expand their customer base by providing a common CaaS platform to deliver telco and edge services to new customer segments, across various industries with guaranteed performance and quality of service.