The new smart network of the satellite television company will be designed by IBM to be agile, scalable, and fully virtualised
Dish Network headquarters in Colorado. (Credit: Leroyky/Wikipedia.org)
IBM has been selected by DISH Network to provide artificial intelligence (AI) powered automation and network orchestration software and services for the latter’s greenfield cloud-native 5G network in the US.
According to IBM, the new smart network of the satellite television company will be designed to be agile, scalable, and completely virtualised. The cloud-native 5G network is expected to benefit enterprise customers spanning all industry verticals, said the company.
DISH Network will bring broad 5G network orchestration to its business and operations platforms.
IBM said that intent-driven orchestration, which is a software-powered automation process along with AI will be leveraged to drive the operations of the cloud-native 5G network architecture.
IBM Global Business Services has been engaged by the direct-broadcast satellite provider for using IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation software with its own 5G network architecture.
The intent-based orchestration functionality will stitch together hardware and software resources more seamlessly and efficiently to help DISH Network make network slicing possible. Besides, the functionality will help the company expedite the creation and delivery of new services.
IBM global communications sector managing director Steve Canepa said: “By utilising IBM’s AI-powered automation and intent-driven network orchestration software, DISH can develop and deploy network offerings, applying advanced AI with IBM Watson and orchestration capabilities to help optimise network operations and performance.
“As a result, DISH can accelerate time to market for new innovative services powered by a secured, automated, intelligent and agile 5G network.”
The satellite television company also intends to employ advanced network slicing for providing new use cases and industry vertical opportunities that are tailored to each business and customer who utilises the private hybrid 5G network.
IBM said that customers will manage the network slices to set service levels for each device that is suitable to their use of the network.
DISH Wireless chief network officer Marc Rouanne said: “Our 5G build is unique in that we are truly creating a ‘network of networks,’ where each enterprise can custom-tailor a network slice or group of slices to achieve their specific business needs. IBM’s orchestration solutions leverage AI, automation and machine learning to not only make these slices possible, but to ensure they adapt over time as customer use evolves.
“With IBM, DISH is combining the speed and latency advances of 5G with the customisation and intelligence of the cloud, and the result will be a paradigm shift for small businesses, large enterprises and the broader wireless industry.”
Earlier this month, IBM introduced the IBM Power E1080 server powered by the new IBM Power10 processor for hybrid cloud customers.