聽到這個消息思科一定不樂意：Facebook日前已與諾基亞、英特爾，還有其他一些電信公司聯(lián)手打造開源硬件和軟件平臺，使通信網(wǎng)絡(luò)建設(shè)更便捷迅速。

這也是Facebook五年前為社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)數(shù)據(jù)中心打造類似項目之后的又一嘗試。如果項目成功，運(yùn)營商網(wǎng)絡(luò)建設(shè)將更加模塊化，但這也意味著愛立信和思科等電信設(shè)備提供商的經(jīng)營會受到?jīng)_擊。

Facebook提議的電信基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施項目旨在打造開源硬件和軟件，覆蓋電信網(wǎng)絡(luò)三大要素：接入、回傳及內(nèi)核。接入即手機(jī)或電腦連到網(wǎng)絡(luò)的第一步，涉及基站和信號塔等。回傳解決信號如何從設(shè)備傳到互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的問題，在根據(jù)不同情況采取光纖接入，也可能銅線或微波接入方式。連上網(wǎng)后，數(shù)據(jù)包要準(zhǔn)確傳送至目的地，并在蜂窩網(wǎng)絡(luò)上計算清楚，以便付費(fèi)或應(yīng)用需求（傳統(tǒng)的短信與Whatsapp信息采用的是不同的傳輸方式），而不同之處就由內(nèi)核來解決。

當(dāng)然這些都是電信基礎(chǔ)知識，此外，由于電信系統(tǒng)誕生以來已經(jīng)超過一個世紀(jì)，可以說是由各種復(fù)雜裝備及專用軟件支撐起來的混合體。然而，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)以及各種互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上利用數(shù)據(jù)聯(lián)接技術(shù)而繞過運(yùn)營商的服務(wù)發(fā)展迅猛，已經(jīng)威脅到傳統(tǒng)商業(yè)模式。

比如，當(dāng)Facebook Messenger或WhatsApp能夠“免費(fèi)”發(fā)信息時，用戶就不會再發(fā)20美分一條的短信。專用、累贅且昂貴的設(shè)備正阻礙運(yùn)營商發(fā)展，不僅使運(yùn)營成本上升、創(chuàng)新緩慢，還讓電信企業(yè)管理者擔(dān)心變成“啞巴管道”。

進(jìn)入云模式

運(yùn)營商正努力從云服務(wù)提供者尋找解決問題的思路。電信運(yùn)營商最大的問題在于，能否迅速轉(zhuǎn)變，以及供應(yīng)商能否保持同步。舉個例子，美國電話電報公司已經(jīng)開始采用軟件定義基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，但底層基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施的轉(zhuǎn)變還相對落后。應(yīng)用新設(shè)施后，貝爾公司就可以在無需手動更改設(shè)備的情況下提升服務(wù)靈活性，而且全網(wǎng)設(shè)計也能得到簡化。

作為打造新型網(wǎng)絡(luò)計劃的一部分，美國電話電報公司已經(jīng)宣布2015年其SDN部分的工作已完成5.7%，2016年底將完成30%。公司計劃使用愛立信和英特爾設(shè)備鋪設(shè)下一代無線網(wǎng)絡(luò)。

Facebook的TIP項目與美國電話電報公司目標(biāo)相似，甚至還與英特爾合作。其他合作商還有德國電信、諾基亞，SK電訊、環(huán)球電信等。

Facebook希望用模塊化組件把硬件和軟件集合起來，打造一個更加簡化的網(wǎng)絡(luò)架構(gòu)，替代當(dāng)前電信網(wǎng)絡(luò)中昂貴、專屬的設(shè)備。雖然Facebook此前曾有過開源硬件的嘗試，但電信業(yè)遠(yuǎn)比建個服務(wù)器要復(fù)雜得多，因此該項目雖然為開源性質(zhì)，但仍涉及牌照問題。

2011年4月，F(xiàn)acebook啟動了旨在建設(shè)開源服務(wù)器的開放計算機(jī)基金項目。當(dāng)時，F(xiàn)acebook認(rèn)為服務(wù)器制造商在服務(wù)器上添加了很多不必要的東西，增加了成本且能耗。

可以想象，對于一家像Facebook這樣需要成千上萬臺服務(wù)器的公司來說，哪怕每臺服務(wù)器上的多余組件只要2美元也意味著成本劇增。2015年，公司稱在開源服務(wù)器方面的投資已節(jié)省了20多億美元。

Facebook和其他服務(wù)器大用戶獲得實惠，就意味著服務(wù)器制造商要吃點虧。戴爾和惠普從一開始就是開放計算機(jī)項目的合作伙伴，但很顯然把簡化版服務(wù)器賣給要求如此嚴(yán)格的買方利潤非常微薄。戴爾還算撐得住，惠普的日子艱難多了。電信業(yè)此前已因合并及轉(zhuǎn)向開放系統(tǒng)連受打擊，這時Facebook又引入新模式，電信業(yè)的前景只會更殘酷。

目前，設(shè)備供應(yīng)商當(dāng)中只有諾基亞是TIP項目的成員，另外兩家全球大供應(yīng)商愛立信和華為尚未加入。諾基亞也加入了早先開放計算機(jī)基金項目，愛立信剛剛加入。對于諾基亞來說，參與建設(shè)模塊通信設(shè)備對其影響要小一些，而且阿爾卡特-朗訊在與諾基亞合并之前其實已經(jīng)開始轉(zhuǎn)型。但即便如此，對于其他想要把設(shè)備作為高度整體化系統(tǒng)來銷售的供應(yīng)商來說，模塊化就意味著威脅。

由于供應(yīng)商的選擇很多，競標(biāo)網(wǎng)絡(luò)組件的競爭變得激烈，這是以前未曾出現(xiàn)過的。德國電信整合轉(zhuǎn)移和IP&固定通路部門副總裁阿萊克斯?克勞伯在郵件中表示，希望看到成本下降，效率提升。

我們相信，網(wǎng)絡(luò)流量的指數(shù)級增長需要新的解決方案，路由器和交換機(jī)等網(wǎng)絡(luò)設(shè)備也需要改進(jìn)。開放計算機(jī)項目已經(jīng)證明，硬件的開放性規(guī)范加上積極的行業(yè)環(huán)境能讓成本和效率發(fā)生巨大變化——而TIP項目將在網(wǎng)絡(luò)各領(lǐng)域都引發(fā)革新浪潮。

至于現(xiàn)有的供應(yīng)商，克勞伯說像思科和瞻博網(wǎng)絡(luò)（其設(shè)備銷售也可能因該項目受到重挫）這樣的公司，“我們期望看到改變，就像之前數(shù)據(jù)中心之前的改進(jìn)一樣。雖然新項目會沖擊當(dāng)前各方，但也創(chuàng)造了巨大的機(jī)會”。

進(jìn)程

目前Facebook已經(jīng)與環(huán)球網(wǎng)絡(luò)在菲律賓一個小村莊共同建了一個試點，用TIP設(shè)備提供網(wǎng)絡(luò)。Facebook基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施部副總裁杰森?泰勒估計，今年下半年將會測試更多網(wǎng)絡(luò)。此外，雖然電信基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施復(fù)雜，成本節(jié)約可能不如數(shù)據(jù)中心那么大，但運(yùn)營商很可能會從模塊化革新中嘗到甜頭。

比起認(rèn)為TIP只是曇花一現(xiàn)或影響微弱的企業(yè)來說，迅速降低成本轉(zhuǎn)而為TIP提供產(chǎn)品的設(shè)備供應(yīng)商們?nèi)兆右矔靡稽c。值得思考的是TIP到底能走多遠(yuǎn)。Facebook當(dāng)時推出開放計算機(jī)項目時，大多數(shù)有巨型數(shù)據(jù)中心的企業(yè)和金融服務(wù)行業(yè)公司都采用了。然而，現(xiàn)在服務(wù)器制造商依然可以指望企業(yè)客戶購買昂貴的服務(wù)器來獲取更高利潤，而電信設(shè)備市場的買家卻少得多。

因此，最終會不會出現(xiàn)一部分客戶采用TIP項目，另一些人避之不理，現(xiàn)在還不得而知。即便是那些不參與該項目的企業(yè)，也很可能會認(rèn)同通過軟件定義基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施進(jìn)行模塊化和靈活化轉(zhuǎn)變的思路，并購買真正支持協(xié)同操作的設(shè)備。

所以，對于開源交換機(jī)、Open Flow以及其他推動網(wǎng)絡(luò)開放并支持供應(yīng)商和設(shè)備間協(xié)同操作的舉動，思科等供應(yīng)商一直心懷顧慮。

可以說Facebook通過TIP創(chuàng)建了一個框架和聯(lián)盟，確保不用再因循守舊，也不用受積重難返的行業(yè)潛規(guī)則拖累就能實現(xiàn)協(xié)同操作，電信行業(yè)早就需要改一改了。說服諾基亞和運(yùn)營商加入說明Facebook至少開了個好頭，也讓TIP更值得關(guān)注。如果我是思科、愛立信、華為或瞻博，現(xiàn)在就會打起精神保持警惕了。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：Donna

校對：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.