At the Open Infrastructure Summit in Denver it was very clear that 5G technology it will depend a lot on an open-source project like it is Kubernetes. We all know Kubernetes for the cloud, well, telecommunications have been using this project for a long time and it will play a key role in 5G. For example, AT&T began investing in Kubernetes and OpenStack as the basis for its communications.
One of AT & T's vice presidents of network software engineering, Ryan Van Wyk, has said in the past that they actually use these projects because there aren't many alternatives and the ones that are out there don't meet the needs. He cited that the alternative they had analyzed involves VMWare software and it does not satisfy all the needs they seek. On the other hand, with the containers based on the aforementioned projects, they can launch different services on which the telecommunications services are based.
That is a triumph for open-source and shows that the Suppliers they are building their infrastructures and standards on open source. AT&T wants to make sure it has a platform to its liking for its future 5G network and is starting to work together with Intel, Mirantis and SK Telecom on Airship, a hybrid combination of the OpenStack cloud and Kubernetes. On the other hand, Verizon already has around 80 applications in production in containers managed by Kubernetes.
Other European telecommunication networks and services companies are also doing this, such as AVSystem, T-Mobile, etc. Without a doubt great news for this type of open source projects and their communities, which are considered for things as serious as these and have unparalleled power even compared to proprietary and paid code projects. In fact, Joel Lindholm, vice president of business development at Ruckus Networks, believes that these types of technologies will be very important for LTE / 5G network companies, and Jacob Smith, co-founder of Packet, believes that the huge investments that providers are making Telecoms in these projects are driving the Kubernetes change.