AWS Shows Its Early Lead in Edge, 5G and Operator Transformation
Telco Symposium offered a window into AWS’ operator strategy
Telco Symposium offered a window into AWS’ operator strategy
Amazon Web Services (AWS) held its Telco Symposium recently, which focused on the latest trends fuelling cloud transformation in the telecom operator industry.
Covid-19 has prompted a dramatic acceleration of the cloud in every industry but one of the most important to watch is telecommunications.
From modernizing data centres and networks to driving new services such as 5G and edge computing, the cloud has become crucial to helping operators overcome some of their largest business challenges.
Let’s take a look at some of the event’s key themes within the context of AWS’s overall direction in telecoms. They have some key implications for the converging cloud and telecoms markets.
More operator workloads run on AWS than any other public cloud. The company was the first cloud provider to set up a dedicated business unit targeting operators in 2016 thanks to early customers including Comcast, Vodafone and Verizon.
Dirk Didascalou, vice president of AWS’ Internet of things (IoT) business, stated that AWS’ strategy focuses on the entire operator value chain and splits its approach into four key pillars:
It’s a striking set of capabilities and a full cloud transformation offering. Another major enabler are AWS’ partners, which play a pivotal role in how it differentiates against the other clouds in this area.
At re:Invent in November 2019, AWS raised the volume on its telecom strategy with AWS Wavelength. Wavelength extends the AWS cloud to the operator environment by embedding AWS computing and storage at the edge of operators’ 5G networks. The service, launched with Verizon, Vodafone, KDDI and SK Telekom, enables developers to build low-latency applications with mobile edge computing for 5G devices directly within AWS.
The event covered myriads of 5G applications, but to meet the hype and expectation surrounding 5G, operators desperately need to woo developers to build new applications on the platform. The most important benefit of Wavelength is that it makes it easier for developers to embed applications directly into operators’ 5G networks providing them with a valuable channel to market.
Operators that want to succeed in the long run, however, will need to compete for developer attention. Microservices, platform-as-a-service solutions and the quality of 5G network APIs in areas such as location, slicing, quality of service, security and network forensics for example will be as important to future competition as connectivity is today.
One of the most interesting 5G presentations came from Thierry Sender, director of IoT at Verizon. As AWS’ first partner to test Wavelength, many will be watching the carrier as the farthest ahead in this area.
As Verizon’s preferred cloud since 2018, AWS Outposts will be deployed in the carrier’s switching centres. Verizon has been trialling the Wavelength service in Chicago throughout 2020. Gaming company Bethesda was announced as the first customer to trial Wavelength, with other major markets in the US set to follow by the end of 2020.
AWS is demonstrating early leadership in edge 5G and operator transformation. To maintain this, several important areas should now come into focus over the next 12 months.
CCS Insight has long predicted that cloud providers and telecom operators would become bedfellows as 5G arrives, to bring commercial cloud services to the network edge for developers and enterprises. AWS’ Telco Symposium was a good window into this trend and the company’s long-term strategy.
A version of this article was first published by Information Age on 30 July 2020.
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