Deutsche Telekom (DT) is putting in place the first pieces of a modular style pan-European network.

The group opened the network’s first production site in Hungarian capital Budapest, which will be followed by two more, in Poland and Greece, during 2017. The three production sites will form the backend of Deutsche Telekom’s future infrastructure in Europe.

The production site in Hungary will be fully operational and ready to run the first services for all European subsidiaries by the end of this year.

DT says the new structure means individual services, such as SMS, voicemail and email, will be offered to all countries in the form of building blocks, or modules.

DT’s move reflects the shift by operators to ‘virtualise’ their networks by taking advantage of technologies such as SDN (Software Defined Networking) and NFV (Network Function Virtualisation). Only last month the operator group said SDNs, virtualisation and cloud services drove a management change at the top of the company.

Pick’n’mix
DT’s subsidiaries can pick individual services that suit their local needs. An additional attraction is the parent can offer new services throughout Europe “within just a few days”.

The group says the modular network means it will stay competitive in local markets while also enjoying synergies from developing services at group level across all European subsidiaries.

The infrastructure will be managed by a new unit, called Deutsche Telekom Pan-Net, which was founded in May last year and is based in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava.

The unit is responsible for all negotiations with vendors. Its managing directors are Kerstin Guenther, former SVP Technology Europe, and Sven Hischke, who is also leading the PanIP transformation programme at Deutsche Telekom.