After the hype comes the reality and it is generally agreed throughout the global industry that 2017 is the year when real-world commercial deployment of NFV will begin in earnest. Indeed, many operators have already budgeted for and are either actually now deploying or are in the advanced planning stages of deploying the new virtualised network technology over the course of this year. NFV is a paradigm shift away from the ways in which traditional networks were built and provisioned and its successful introduction will have the most profound effects. However, some obstacles and problems remain to be overcome and here John Healy and Ou Liang examine the state of NFV from the perspective of China Telecom and Intel's collaborative partnership with the operator. China Telecom is the largest fixed line service provider and the third biggest mobile operator in the People's Republic with 120 million wireline broadband subscribers, 150 wireline access lines and 220 million mobile subscribers. It's big. In this video Ou Liang points up China Telecom and Intel's joint demo in which is shown the carrier's Rack Scale Architecture-based NFV platform with some significant and demanding Virtual Network Functions running on it. The demonstration is indicative evidence of the how, with Intel's help, China Telecom is working to fulfill its ambitious CTNet2025 vision

FILMED AT: Mobile World Congress 2017, Barcelona