vRGW: Towards network function virtualization enabled by software defined networking

It has been a significant challenge for network carriers to deploy and provision a large number of Customer-Premises Equipment (CPE) devices located at subscribers´ premises and connected to a carrier´s network infrastructure. In this paper, we make a first systematic attempt to fundamentally re-shape the access networks into a software defined networking architecture by virtualizing the network functionality of residential gateways (vRGW). Our approach can be generalized to other CPE such as set-top boxes. Our analysis suggests that vRGW can achieve significant economic benefits ranging from up to 90% reduction on the call center cost and up to 46% reduction on the product return cost.