Virtualized EPC Product:

Compared to existing LTE EPC infrastructure using specialized hardware, VEPC is a much lower cost solution and can significantly save both CAPEX and OPEX as listed in Table below:

Without virtualization, customers need to pay for specialized hardware and software plus specialized maintenance and support.

• Hardware: Customer needs to purchase special hardware from vendors.
• Software: EPC software is tied to hardware platform and sells as one piece.
• Annual maintenance and support from vendors for EPC is very expensive. There is usually no low cost solution or product to use for small carriers or small business.
• Equipments are dedicated to handle EPC traffic only. Once equipments are deployed, it cannot scale back. The equipments cannot be shared across EPC nodes.
• It takes at least 6 months to deploy equipments to support subscriber growth or venue events. Accurate capacity planning is almost impossible.

With virtualization, customers can use commercial off-the-shelf  hardware and significantly cut down maintenance and support :

• Hardware:  Customers can purchase commercial off-the-shelf hardware themselves, mainly PC server, or use virtualized cloud infrastructure. 
• Software: Software is independent of hardware and customers can now buy software separately. Customer pays as you go.
• Annual maintenance and support: the hardware/software maintenance cost was cut down to minimal and become part of an IT job. IT and software technicians are widely available.
• Equipments are shared to handle video/voice server traffic in additional to EPC traffic. The equipments cannot be shared across EPC nodes.
• EPC can be deployed as needed. It may take minutes to ramp up EPC capacity to support subscriber growth in venue events, which makes accurate planning a reality.