Telus, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Samsung are joining forces to create the first virtual roaming gateway in North America, which the companies state will offer improved reliability, speed, and latency for customers traveling abroad.
Through the partnership, Telus will become the first telecommunications provider in North America to offer this new method of connecting worldwide. Traditionally, roaming traffic like voice, data, and SMS, is routed through the provider’s home country. This can, in turn, result in slower speeds. With this new approach, Telus is housing its network with AWS Regions worldwide, using virtualized roaming gateways.
This, explains Telus, means that traffic no longer needs to go through Canada, but will be routed directly to the closest AWS Region that houses Telus’ network. The result purports to be a significant enhancement in speed and responsiveness of mobile services.
How does Samsung play into the equation? The process, also known as network cloudification, uses cloud-native Core technology from Samsung on public cloud for mobile data, and ng-voice for voice calls, which helps optimize performance.
“This architecture evolution further strengthens Telus’ commitment to keeping our customers connected to what matters most, ensuring they are able to enjoy the same award-winning experience they have in Canada from anywhere in the world,” says Nazim Benhadid, Chief Technology Officer at Telus.
Chivas Nambiar, General Manager, Telco Business Unit at AWS, adds that he is “excited about how Telus is using the cloud to augment their network capabilities to provide consistent and reliable global services for their customers.”
Stephen Wiktorski, Vice President and Head of Networks at Samsung Canada, notes that “Samsung’s Cloud-native Core is designed with flexibility and scalability in mind. “By ensuring higher stability and reliability, Samsung powers Telus’ new roaming approach to bring unmatched network performance and customer experiences while traveling.”
Virtual roaming gateway trials will begin in Q1 2024, but the possibilities of this collaboration extend far beyond roaming. Leveraging Samsung’s full Cloud-native Core solution on AWS paves the way for further advancements in disaster-recovery and 5G standalone core use cases, says Telus.