5G is often described as the first generation of cellular “born in the cloud,” which describes a dynamic, flexible network that’s increasingly automated through the use of NFV and SDN tools. This gives operators more flexibility while also lower equipment costs by swapping out proprietary hardware for commercial off-the-shelf hardware running largely open source software.
AT&T has been preaching this particular gospel for some time as evidenced by, among other things, its ECOMP (now ONAP) automation platform, which was developed internally then made open source via the Linux Foundation.
