O₂ Telefónica in Germany and Google Cloud announced their intent to enter into a strategic partnership to drive the cloud transformation of O₂ Telefonica's 5G network, collaborating closely with Nokia. Based on the successful cooperation on charging solutions for mobile customers, O₂ Telefónica now wants to expand its collaboration and considers to move further 5G functions like Nokia's Policy Control Functions to Google Cloud. Using Google Cloud's modern infrastructure, this partnership is going to enable O₂ Telefónica to accelerate the deployment of cloud-native 5G functions and telecom workloads, delivering resilient, high-performance 5G services with lower latency and higher reliability for its customers.

The rollout of 5G presents both immense opportunities and significant challenges for communication service providers (CSPs). To fully capitalize on 5G's potential, CSPs need to move beyond traditional, monolithic architectures and embrace cloud-native, software-defined networks. O₂ Telefónica is starting its transformation journey by migrating Nokia's Policy Control Functions to Google Cloud, which is essential for managing the network, setting the rules, and using up-to-the-minute information to make the network run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

"We are building the mobile network of the future and now are taking the next innovative step by bringing further network functions and telecom workloads to the cloud," said Mallik Rao, chief technology and enterprise business officer, O₂ Telefónica in Germany. "This work with Google Cloud and Nokia is a significant step in O₂ Telefónica's technology transformation. We have already gained valuable experience with Google Cloud and are now extending this collaboration. By embracing cloud-native solutions, we are modernizing our network to deliver the next generation of 5G services to our customers."

Google Cloud's modern infrastructure services, including Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), play a pivotal role in this transformation by providing a secure, scalable, and highly available platform for deploying and managing mission-critical 5G workloads. GKE's advanced capabilities enable accelerated migration of network function workloads with minimal adaptations. This will allow O₂ Telefónica to confidently run its essential 5G operations on Google Cloud, providing a reliable base for its 5G plans and making it faster to introduce new and innovative services.

O₂ Telefónica's selection of Google Cloud followed a rigorous evaluation process. Working closely with Nokia, O₂ Telefónica found that Google Cloud provided an environment that facilitated seamless onboarding of new customers and addressed critical security requirements.

"At Google Cloud, we are committed to empowering CSPs with the technology they need to succeed in the 5G era and beyond," said Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer, Google Cloud. "Our planned work with O₂ Telefónica in Germany and Nokia demonstrates our ability to meet CSPs where they are, providing them with the cloud infrastructure and solutions to modernize their networks, drive innovation, and deliver exceptional experiences to their customers."

"Nokia is pleased to join forces with O₂ Telefónica and Google Cloud to pioneer the next generation of 5G core networks," said Raghav Sahgal, president of Cloud and Network Services, Nokia. "Nokia's market-leading 5G cloud-native, multi-cloud core technology, including our advanced Policy Control Functions, will give O₂ Telefónica greater agility essential for managing and automating capabilities of modern networks, and accelerating the delivery of innovative 5G services."