Conclusion

This marks the conclusion of the 23rd edition of the EANTC interoperability test — the most comprehensive and long-standing multi-vendor interoperability testing series for service provider transport networks leveraging IP, Segment Routing, and (initially) MPLS. Thanks to our trusted, longstanding collaboration with Upperside Conferences, we successfully presented an increasingly expansive and sophisticated showcase at the MPLS & SDN World Congress in Paris once again this year.

Test outcomes were distributed as follows:

• 46% in Segment Routing 
• 25% in EVPN
• 19% in time synchronization
• 10% in network management and orchestration

Amid the global expansion of standalone 5G deployments, many participating vendors focused on testing advanced 5G x-Haul scenarios utilizing SRv6 and SR-MPLS data planes, including traffic engineering policies and time synchronization.

The results reflect a pivotal moment for the transport networking industry: Segment Routing architectures (SR-MPLS and SRv6 with EVPN) are now robust, mature, and refined. However, the industry's focus is shifting to address the needs of cloud data centers running GenAI workloads and the demands of 5G/6G-ready mobile edge services. These use cases necessitate highly scalable, reliable, and application-specific service performance.

Simultaneously, service providers must rethink how they manage network operations centers (NOCs). The manual, network management software-assisted approaches of the past no longer keep pace with growing complexity. As network architectures mature and qualified, affordable personnel is challenging to hire, the urgency for automated network operations intensifies. While automated provisioning has long been a standard for consumer and small business services, fully autonomous networks (TM Forum AN Level 4) are now on the horizon. Such networks will leverage telemetry-based analytics, automated troubleshooting, and self-optimizing capabilities.

In both key areas—application-specific services for AI and automated network operations—manufacturers are making rapid progress, so far sometimes with proprietary solutions. At EANTC, we advocate for the accelerated development of standards-based, interoperable solutions. Critical questions remain: How will future transport networks support supplier-independent network expansion? Will service providers retain the ability to issue RFPs for discrete components like core, aggregation, peering, and edge routers, or will they need to embrace single-vendor ecosystems to achieve automated operations?  These are critical topics that we will tackle next year.

We hope our tests offer valuable insights to network operators—including carriers, service providers, MNOs, large enterprises, and government agencies—demonstrating how to design efficient architectures and achieve seamless operations in multi-vendor network environments.