PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Working with VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), Vodafone Group has completed the roll-out of network virtual infrastructure (NVI) across all of its European business and 21 markets in total.

Operating a reliable, agile network that can be more efficiently upgraded to maintain the quality of coverage has never been more important as Vodafone customers across Europe rely on the operator to provide critical connectivity and communications services during the COVID-19 crisis.

With the completion of work in Albania, Vodafone now has a single digital network architecture across its European markets, enabling the operator to design, build, test and deploy next generation functions more securely and around 40 percent more quickly*. Infrastructure automation also helps limit the amount of manual intervention required to operate and maintain Vodafone networks.

VMware’s telco cloud infrastructure is deployed by Vodafone at more than 57 sites across Europe and 25 in its Africa, Asia and Oceania markets. The cloud-based infrastructure supports voice core, data core and service platforms on over 900 virtual network functions. Almost 50 percent of Vodafone’s core network nodes providing voice and data services run on VMware’s NVI platform, vCloud NFV.

Johan Wibergh, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone Group, said: “Vodafone wants to be the industry’s leading digital telco and we are pleased with the progress made to introduce modern cloud-based technology and automation. Working with VMware, we have improved the speed and efficiency with which we can support customers and estimate that the cost of our core network functions has been reduced by 50 percent*.”

“Leading service providers, like Vodafone, are adopting a telco cloud infrastructure to deliver next-generation applications and services,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud, VMware. “The successful engagement between our two companies is evident in the tremendous results Vodafone has captured since starting on their network transformation journey. We look forward to continuing to innovate together to unlock the transformational benefits of network modernization for Vodafone customers.”

VMware’s telco cloud platform provides the automation for virtual compute, storage, networking, management and operations capabilities to enable operators to provide virtualized network services. Its transformative capabilities allow communication service providers to accelerate time to market and increase revenue with new services, streamline operations, reduce network infrastructure costs, and deploy elastic business models for telecommunications workloads.