Facebook庞大计划挑战传统电信界

听到这个消息思科一定不乐意：Facebook日前已与诺基亚、英特尔，还有其他一些电信公司联手打造开源硬件和软件平台，使通信网络建设更便捷迅速。

这也是Facebook五年前为社交网络数据中心打造类似项目之后的又一尝试。如果项目成功，运营商网络建设将更加模块化，但这也意味着爱立信和思科等电信设备提供商的经营会受到冲击。

Facebook提议的电信基础设施项目旨在打造开源硬件和软件，覆盖电信网络三大要素：接入、回传及内核。接入即手机或电脑连到网络的第一步，涉及基站和信号塔等。回传解决信号如何从设备传到互联网的问题，在根据不同情况采取光纤接入，也可能铜线或微波接入方式。连上网后，数据包要准确传送至目的地，并在蜂窝网络上计算清楚，以便付费或应用需求（传统的短信与Whatsapp信息采用的是不同的传输方式），而不同之处就由内核来解决。

当然这些都是电信基础知识，此外，由于电信系统诞生以来已经超过一个世纪，可以说是由各种复杂装备及专用软件支撑起来的混合体。然而，互联网以及各种互联网上利用数据联接技术而绕过运营商的服务发展迅猛，已经威胁到传统商业模式。

比如，当Facebook Messenger或WhatsApp能够“免费”发信息时，用户就不会再发20美分一条的短信。专用、累赘且昂贵的设备正阻碍运营商发展，不仅使运营成本上升、创新缓慢，还让电信企业管理者担心变成“哑巴管道”。

进入云模式

运营商正努力从云服务提供者寻找解决问题的思路。电信运营商最大的问题在于，能否迅速转变，以及供应商能否保持同步。举个例子，美国电话电报公司已经开始采用软件定义基础设施，但底层基础设施的转变还相对落后。应用新设施后，贝尔公司就可以在无需手动更改设备的情况下提升服务灵活性，而且全网设计也能得到简化。

作为打造新型网络计划的一部分，美国电话电报公司已经宣布2015年其SDN部分的工作已完成5.7%，2016年底将完成30%。公司计划使用爱立信和英特尔设备铺设下一代无线网络。

Facebook的TIP项目与美国电话电报公司目标相似，甚至还与英特尔合作。其他合作商还有德国电信、诺基亚，SK电讯、环球电信等。

Facebook希望用模块化组件把硬件和软件集合起来，打造一个更加简化的网络架构，替代当前电信网络中昂贵、专属的设备。虽然Facebook此前曾有过开源硬件的尝试，但电信业远比建个服务器要复杂得多，因此该项目虽然为开源性质，但仍涉及牌照问题。

2011年4月，Facebook启动了旨在建设开源服务器的开放计算机基金项目。当时，Facebook认为服务器制造商在服务器上添加了很多不必要的东西，增加了成本且能耗。

可以想象，对于一家像Facebook这样需要成千上万台服务器的公司来说，哪怕每台服务器上的多余组件只要2美元也意味着成本剧增。2015年，公司称在开源服务器方面的投资已节省了20多亿美元。

Facebook和其他服务器大用户获得实惠，就意味着服务器制造商要吃点亏。戴尔和惠普从一开始就是开放计算机项目的合作伙伴，但很显然把简化版服务器卖给要求如此严格的买方利润非常微薄。戴尔还算撑得住，惠普的日子艰难多了。电信业此前已因合并及转向开放系统连受打击，这时Facebook又引入新模式，电信业的前景只会更残酷。

目前，设备供应商当中只有诺基亚是TIP项目的成员，另外两家全球大供应商爱立信和华为尚未加入。诺基亚也加入了早先开放计算机基金项目，爱立信刚刚加入。对于诺基亚来说，参与建设模块通信设备对其影响要小一些，而且阿尔卡特-朗讯在与诺基亚合并之前其实已经开始转型。但即便如此，对于其他想要把设备作为高度整体化系统来销售的供应商来说，模块化就意味着威胁。

由于供应商的选择很多，竞标网络组件的竞争变得激烈，这是以前未曾出现过的。德国电信整合转移和IP&固定通路部门副总裁阿莱克斯•克劳伯在邮件中表示，希望看到成本下降，效率提升。

我们相信，网络流量的指数级增长需要新的解决方案，路由器和交换机等网络设备也需要改进。开放计算机项目已经证明，硬件的开放性规范加上积极的行业环境能让成本和效率发生巨大变化——而TIP项目将在网络各领域都引发革新浪潮。

至于现有的供应商，克劳伯说像思科和瞻博网络（其设备销售也可能因该项目受到重挫）这样的公司，“我们期望看到改变，就像之前数据中心之前的改进一样。虽然新项目会冲击当前各方，但也创造了巨大的机会”。

进程

目前Facebook已经与环球网络在菲律宾一个小村庄共同建了一个试点，用TIP设备提供网络。Facebook基础设施部副总裁杰森•泰勒估计，今年下半年将会测试更多网络。此外，虽然电信基础设施复杂，成本节约可能不如数据中心那么大，但运营商很可能会从模块化革新中尝到甜头。

比起认为TIP只是昙花一现或影响微弱的企业来说，迅速降低成本转而为TIP提供产品的设备供应商们日子也会更好一点。值得思考的是TIP到底能走多远。Facebook当时推出开放计算机项目时，大多数有巨型数据中心的企业和金融服务行业公司都采用了。然而，现在服务器制造商依然可以指望企业客户购买昂贵的服务器来获取更高利润，而电信设备市场的买家却少得多。

因此，最终会不会出现一部分客户采用TIP项目，另一些人避之不理，现在还不得而知。即便是那些不参与该项目的企业，也很可能会认同通过软件定义基础设施进行模块化和灵活化转变的思路，并购买真正支持协同操作的设备。

所以，对于开源交换机、Open Flow以及其他推动网络开放并支持供应商和设备间协同操作的举动，思科等供应商一直心怀顾虑。

可以说Facebook通过TIP创建了一个框架和联盟，确保不用再因循守旧，也不用受积重难返的行业潜规则拖累就能实现协同操作，电信行业早就需要改一改了。说服诺基亚和运营商加入说明Facebook至少开了个好头，也让TIP更值得关注。如果我是思科、爱立信、华为或瞻博，现在就会打起精神保持警惕了。（财富中文网）

译者：Donna

校对：夏林

Cisco isn’t going to like this.Facebook has teamed up with Nokia, Intel, and several telcos to create an open source hardware and software platform for the telecommunication industry designed to make it easier and faster to build communications networks. The program is modeled after a similar effort the social network created five years ago for its data center.

If successful, the project will help operators build networks using a more modular approach, but it will also change the economics of telco equipment providers such as Ericsson and Cisco .

Facebook FB 2.48% is proposing the Telco Infra Project, or TIP. The goal is to build open source hardware and software that will cover the three elements of a telecommunications network: The access, the backhaul and the core. Access is how a phone or a computer gets online in the first place and includes elements like the base stations and cell towers. The backhaul is how the signals from the devices get onto the Internet itself, and includes fiber access or even copper or microwave, depending on the situation. Once it gets to the Internet, those data packets have to get where they’re going and be counted appropriately on the cellular network for billing or application purposes (things like traditional text messages are still routed differently than WhatsApp messages). This happens in the core.

That’s telecom 101, and, because it’s a system that has been built up over a century, it’s a mish-mash of complicated gear and proprietary software holding it all together. However, the Internet, and particularly the evolution of services that go over the top of carrier networks using data connections, havethreatened the carrier’s business models. It’s hard to charge people 20 cents per text, for example, when Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp are “free” with a data plan.

The proprietary, cumbersome, and expensive mess of gear is holding carriers back. It raises their costs, keeps them from innovating quickly and forces their executives to fear becoming a dumb pipe.

Enter the cloud model

The solution for carriers has been to turn to cloud providers for inspiration. The big question for the telecommunications carriers is whether they can turn fast enough—and whether their vendors will move with them. For example, this shift in underlying infrastructure is behind AT&T’s move to adopt software-defined infrastructure. That infrastructure will hopefully give Ma Bell more flexibility to deliver services without having to manually change out its gear, and also helps it simplify the overall network design. As part of AT&T’s T 0.79% plans to build this new type of network, it announced last week that its SDN efforts were 5.7% complete in 2015 and would be 30% complete by the end of 2016. It plans to roll out its next-generation wireless network using equipment from Ericsson and Intel.

Facebook’s TIP has a similar goal to AT&T and is even working with Intel INTC 2.19% . Other partners include Deutsche Telekom, Nokia NOK 3.17% , SKTelecom and Globe Telecom.

Facebook hopes to create a more simplified network architecture using modular components that combine hardware and software. This would replace the expensive, proprietary gear that underlies telecommunications networks today. Facebook calls the efforts open, but there will be licenses involved, simply because the telecommunications world is far more complicated than the world of building servers, where Facebook has experimented with open source hardware before.

In April 2011, Facebook launched the Open Compute Foundation, an effort to build open source servers. At the time the goal was to help eliminate much of the unnecessary stuff that the server makers put on servers that Facebook felt added costs in terms of components and power draw. For a company like Facebook, which had tens of thousands of severs, $2 in extra components costs added up. A year ago, the company said investing in open source servers had saved it more than $2 billion.

What was good for Facebook and other big buyers of server gear was less of a win for the makers of the boxes themselves. While Dell and HP HPE 0.95% were on board as Open Compute partners from the get go, it’s no secret that the margins of building bare bones servers for the most demanding buyers are slim. Dell has made a go of it, while HP has struggled. As Facebook tries to bring this model to the telecommunications world, which has seen its business hurt by consolidation as well as the recent move to more open systems, things are about to become brutal.

So far, of the equipment vendors only Nokia is a member of TIP, leaving out the two largest telco equipment vendors Ericsson ERIC 1.08% and Huawei. Ericsson did just join the Open Compute Foundation, the open source server project, which also counts Nokia as a member. Nokia has less to lose by becoming involved in any effort to build modular telecom gear. That was already a move that Alcatel-Lucent, the company that Nokia merged with, was veering toward. However, for other providers of gear, who tend to sell their equipment as a highly integrated system, modularity represents a threat.

Being able to pick and choose from a variety of vendors creates competition for the various elements of the network, where it didn’t really exist before. Axel Clauberg, a VP of aggregation, transport, IP & fixed access at Deutsche Telekom AG, said via email he’s looking forward to the lowered costs and potential boost in efficiency.

We believe that the exponential growth of Internet traffic requires new approaches, also on networking equipment like routers and switches. The Open Compute Project has proven that open specifications for hardware, combined with an active community, can have a drastic impact on efficiency and cost—TIP will trigger the same for all areas of the network.

As for existing vendors, Clauberg says of including companies such as Cisco and Juniper JNPR 0.85% (whose gear is also likely to be hard hit by this initiative), “We are expecting similar changes as they already happened within the data center. While this impacts existing players, it also creates large opportunities.”

TIP in action TIP

So far Facebook working with Globe has created the first pilot network using the TIP gear in a small village in the Philippines, and Jason Taylor, VP of infrastructure at Facebook, estimates that more networks will be tested later this year. Carriers will likely reap the benefits of having this level of modular design first, although the savings may not be as drastic as what happened in the data center because of the level of complexity that telecommunications infrastructure requires.

The equipment vendors that move quickly to reduce their costs and adapt to build products for the TIP will have an easier time than those who ignore it as a flash in the pan or something that won’t have much an impact. One question worth pondering is how far the TIP efforts will extend. When Facebook introduced the Open Compute Project, it was mostly adopted by the companies that operated giant data centers and those in the financial service industry. Server makers still could count on enterprise clientele to buy their fancier boxes at higher margins. But the telco equipment market has a much smaller group of buyers.

So it’s not clear if there will eventually be a bifurcation of buyers who will adopt the Facebook’s Telco Infra Project while others steer clear. Even those who don’t play along are likely to adopt the principles of modularity and flexibility through software-defined architectures and buying gear from companies that support true interoperability. That’s why vendors like Cisco and others have been leery about the threat of open source switches, Open Flow, and other elements that have been forcing the network world to open up and embrace interoperability between vendors and their gear.

With TIP, Facebook is basically creating a framework and consortium to ensure that interoperability happens without all of the FUD and games that typically happens in an industry that is long overdue for a change. The fact that Facebook has convinced Nokia and several carriers to get involved is a great first step and one that makes TIP worth watching. If I were Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei or Juniper, I’d be looking over my shoulder.