Central Offices transformation strategy for FutureX

Now, the CSPs (Communication Service Providers) are planning to capture new future digital services revenue and offset legacy service revenue decline by transforming themselves into Digital Services Providers (DSP) by adopting the FutureX vision centered around cloud-integrated networks. Most legacy CSPs own large number of Central Office (CO) buildings often in prime locations to house copper based access technology equipment. An obvious question for CSPs is the role of these COs in the future? A key aspect for 'retaining' and 'transforming' these COs is to gain long-term strategic advantage. In fact, these large number of distributed COs provide an advantage to legacy CSPs over OTT providers and other CSPs in terms of readiness for the delivery low latency edge cloud based services. Also, the legacy CSPs would require about 60%-80% less space in future due to the increased reach of fiber, virtualization and automation of service life cycle management. Excess space located in prime geographical areas can be re-purposed (e.g. sell/ lease, hosting) for significant financial benefits. This paper examines the key considerations and insights for the development of CO transformation strategy addressing topics like CO / space consolidation, placement and optimal distribution of network functions (NF), identification of edge / core cloud nodes, and emerging CO architecture initiatives.