So let's take a look again at the high-level communication service provider network as it's abstracted. Again, one of the things that we want to keep in mind here is when we look at this diagram. So for example, even though Service EPC in the middle on that top box. Depending on the Comm service provider, they're going to be a multiplicity of those EPCs, and that EPC is actually not a platform that's a functionality that is realized by a number of platform. So, it's a collection of functions that can be assembled together into a variety of other elements. Let's start again at the left-hand side and look at the access. So, public access through the 4G, 5G network comes into the radio tower. That tower in fact may be interconnected either through a microwave in some cases or hardware connected into some additional aggregation point, and it provides RAN access. That RAN access collection of towers then are going to be delivered through a Mobile Backhaul Network into those elements of the EPC, the Evolved Packet Core. That Evolved Packet Core depending on the traffic pattern is going to distribute that traffic then either to elements like the IMS as shown on the upper right of the diagram if its voice traffic of some kind, or it's going to deliver it through what we call the GiLAN. The GiLAN is a collection of services again like the EPC that provides the packet access. So, if we're streaming video or browsing the web or pulling emails or doing any of our other types of access from our user device at that point and typically that traffic is going to flow through that GiLAN before it egresses that Comm service provider network into the Telco cloud type of an environment, and then accesses the larger internet as a whole. Then there's optical transport and access through that as we go further out to the right. Let's drop down again on the left-hand side and pick up both residential or the enterprise. Typically, in that sense, there's a piece of equipment or a collection of pieces of equipment that we know as the Customer Premises Equipment. Whether there's the home Customer Premises Equipment and you'll think of that as being your residential gateway. So, you've got a termination point coming in where there are a copper or a cable or a fiber is terminated in, and the homeowners paying for the electricity that powers this device. But that device either can be provided by the Comm service provider or provided by the homeowner themselves, but it provides that physical transition. Again, that goes back into a consolidation point, maybe at the curb, maybe further into the network, and then finally comes into some type of a metro ethernet into a provider edge where we can find services such as the Content Delivery Network before we move that traffic into our Telco cloud. Again, from a user standpoint, if you're accessing it through your Wi-Fi hotspot, you're going to do the same thing. You're streaming some type of video and you really don't care whether you're on the macro network of 4G, 5G network or whether you're sitting at home off of your WiFi network. You still want to be able to access that same content, and the Comm service provider is going to try and consolidate that traffic as soon as they can into their network because they want to be able to provide that as a Com-Net service. When we breakdown to the enterprise level, the customer premises equipment at the enterprise level is oftentimes more sophisticated. It may be more complicated as well, it may be more volumeless, particularly if you think about a very large enterprise or corporation that has a campus for example, may have their own network and they still have access to a communication service provider or multiple communication service providers that allow their data access that's part of their normal business process, and all of that will flow through customer premises equipment. Not unusual. In this case, that customer premises equipment is actually managed by the largest of enterprises, but there are a whole host of enterprises as well that want to transition that responsibility after the Comm service provider even though the enterprise itself is as we like to say sometimes paying for the electricity of those devices. It's a manageability. They may have intrusion detection software that's running there, they may have firewall functionality that's running there. They're going to have some type of network address translation that's running there, a variety of functions that are running there, and in the purpose-built world oftentimes those are multiplicities of platforms. Inside a virtualized world, we want to think about those as being service chain functions and maybe can reside on a fewer number of platforms. It gives us better manageability of that type of resource, whether that's managed by the enterprise itself or whether that's managed by the Comm service provider, and still flows into that Comm service provider network as effectively as possible. So we touched on that high-level and I mentioned some of the alphabet soup that exists inside that customer prem, inside that Comm service provider network that we're looking at virtualizing. Some of the key aspects of it as a snapshot of today are obviously the CP. Most interesting for the most part is at enterprise level CP we're going to talk about that in another section. Virtualizing the RAN itself. This is a great opportunity as we're starting to see 5G introduced, and different Comm service providers may in fact have different levels of virtualizations that are necessary. We're not going to go into all those details right now, but some of the other sections will. Is that we can virtualize the RAN, break it up at different layers. Maybe some Comm service providers need that to be broken up for whatever reason at layer three. Others may see an advantage of doing at layer two, and then others may see an advantage of doing it at layer one. There's no right answer for everyone, is that sometimes it's a local issue, sometimes it's your preferences, sometimes it's a geographical issue that comes into play as to why we make these choices. As a matter of fact, some Comm service providers may need multiple desegregation of that virtualization of the RAN. We've talked a little bit about this thing called the Evolved Packet Core, and we're going to touch on it a little bit more. Nevertheless, the functionality that we're looking at here are all those critical elements inside that operation of that OT network providers those revenue-generating operators with the platforms that they need in order to continue that service. As we start looking at things like 5G, obviously, the IoT services are going to significantly come into play there. So, what happens in that virtualization area is that the state-of-the-art today is that a traditional telecom equipment manufacturer or the network Comm provider depending on how you'd like to flavor your soup, are working to decompose our solutions. A couple years ago, we're seeing ported solutions coming in where some might say that we're driving Hypervisors under previously existing applications. While it wasn't really in the full spirit of the intent of virtualization, is a step along the way in the process, and now we're getting to the point where they're seeing really truly decomposed systems. Some of them are starting to show up as Cloud Native from the independent software vendors that are in that community. Some of them from the NEP community as well was starting to see into that space where they disaggregated now that functionality into both virtual machines and in some cases into container spaces, and are starting to head in the direction of providing that service in there that desegregation. We also have a community I mentioned the ISPs, providing now Pure Play. They may have never sold hardware platforms intentionally, they may have done it as a residual result of their business operates. But these are still seen as a disruptors in a business. They're starting to gain traction. There are many success stories that are out there today that are causing the industry to look at what's happening and move this technology forward. The whole point is that purpose-built solutions provided in some sense a vendor lock-in, is being challenged by the Comm service providers. So that fits in line with the model that we came about in 2012 transformation that was in there. One of the areas that remains a work in progress if you will is that orchestration layer. The element management systems of the past are still in place in many cases even though they've been disaggregated into virtual functions. We're starting to see how hybrid designs come along and we still have the challenge of moving past the hand design infrastructure where you've got a glue that system integration work back together. Some of this transformation really has been cloud-led is that we see that the there are players out there that are challenging the status quo in that Comm service provider space, and putting pressure on traditional providers of the telecom service particularly when you look at things like Enterprise Access, Enterprise Service. Certainly, they challenge the Comm service providers to provide more than just the transport layers. Then we also have an area that's been functional-led, and the Comm service providers themselves, some of the largest in our industry are really showing their leadership and demonstrating that they can drive the industry forward and reduce the risk and ramp up and face this transformation in.
