Mobile operators in emerging markets face rising data demand under revenue, infrastructure, regulatory, and investment constraints. Network function virtualization (NFV) enables evolved packet core (EPC) modernization, but operators must determine which deployment model provides the best strategic and operational fit. This paper examines EPC virtualization as an operatorlevel deployment-selection problem using Palestine as a case study. A contextspecific decision framework integrates operator readiness, stakeholder-derived key performance indicator (KPI) weights, deployment-model ratings, capital expenditure (CapEx) / operating expenditure (OpEx) analysis, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) consistency checking, and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS)-style robustness validation. Five alternatives are compared under the same operator scenario: owned legacy EPC, owned NFV / virtualized evolved packet core (vEPC), network functions virtualization infrastructure as a service (NFVIaaS), virtual network platform as a service (VNPaaS), and virtual network service as a service (VNSaaS). The novelty lies in linking multi-criteria scoring to local regulatory, infrastructure, security, supply-chain, and business constraints rather than applying generic weighted ranking alone. Scenario-based technical validation examines latency / quality of service (QoS) exposure, scalability, recovery, elasticity, and observability. The results indicate that fully owned vEPC provides the strongest overall fit when service control, quality, implementation constraints, and long-term operational efficiency are jointly considered.

Title

TELKOMNIKA Telecommunication, Computing, Electronics and Control

Publisher

Universitas Ahmad Dahlan (UAD) in collaboration with the Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science (IAES)

Publisher Country

Indonesia

Indexing

Scopus

Impact Factor

None

Publication Type

Both (Printed and Online)

Volume

24

Year

2026

Pages

1480-1491