Telecommunications industry biggies back Facebook's Telecom Infra Project

Facebook launched its Telecom Infra Project - an engineering-focused initiative that is bringing operators, infrastructure providers, system integrators, and other tech companies together to collaborate on the development of new technologies and reinvent traditional approaches to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure to reduce costs and expand data networks.Along with Facebook, companies like Intel, Nokia, Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom had pledged to join this initiative at inception. According to a report, new members have joined in too which include names such as Vodafone and Telefonica that operate globally, South African telco MTN which operates in Africa, Southeast Asia's Axiata Digital and Indosat with its footprint in Indonesia. The report adds that new hardware partners including Broadcom and Juniper Networks have also pledged their support to the Telecom Infra Project (TIP).Facebook is building on its experience from the Open Compute Project which prompted the social media giant to kick-start this project also by collaborating with other companies. TIP members will work together to contribute designs in three areas — access, backhaul, and core and management — applying the Open Compute Project models of openness and disaggregation.