There have been some interesting edge and 5G ecosystem developments in the past week. Business technology journalist Antony Savvas takes a close look.
Those developments came as it was predicted that global 5G services revenues would grow by over 250% this year. Juniper Research said 5G services would account for US$73 billion (€63.01 billion) by the end of 2021, a big jump from the $20 billion (€17.26 billion) last year.
Juniper predicts that 5G will represent 8.5% of operators’ revenue by the end of this year, as they seek a return on their significant 5G investment so far. And it reckons that by 2026, operators’ 5G services revenue will increase to more than $600 billion (€517.87 billion).
Challenges
But it warns that operators will face challenges in meeting rising mobile data demands arising from 5G networks if they don’t increase their use of network virtualisation and network orchestration technology, and accelerate roll-outs of their fibre back-haul infrastructure to alleviate traffic congestion.
However, there are signs that industry bodies, the telcos themselves and governments are starting to move in the right direction to make sure telecoms infrastructure supports the revenue opportunities available.
Industry alliance
Bridge Alliance, the mobile operator body covering 34 markets in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and global telco body TM Forum, have entered into a strategic partnership that will simplify the adoption of edge computing for global telecoms companies. This will enable them to accelerate their efforts in emerging services.
The partnership will advance multi-access edge computing (MEC) as a “growth engine” for telcos, for instance, which is a key platform architecture to support the delivery of higher-value 5G services.
MEC supports ultra-low latency applications by processing data closer to the user instead of sending it to the cloud, enabling new business models and growth around online gaming, drones, robots and augmented and virtual reality applications, for instance.
Open APIs
Through the alliance, Bridge and its member telecom operators will be able to leverage TM Forum’s open APIs to deliver accessible MEC at scale. “This will pave the way for interoperability and standardisation of MEC globally”, the partners says. The operators are also set to boost their capabilities in areas such as location-based services and optimising content storage and distribution closer to their customers for faster response times.
Ong Geok Chwee, CEO of Bridge Alliance, says, “MEC is an area of growth which many telecom operators are focusing on as our industry moves towards edge computing. Given the current fragmented regional telecoms market, there is a need to work towards integration and interoperability as a common goal.”
Nik Willetts, CEO of TM Forum, adds, “Alongside AI (artificial intelligence) and 5G, MEC is a key digital infrastructure technology that will unlock the potential of Industry 4.0 and exciting new B2B services. For the telecoms industry to seize these opportunities for growth, we need open standards that make it easy to partner, federate, operate and assure MEC solutions end-to-end.”
Telco edge progress
In another development, AtlasEdge, a company I’ve written about before, has just extended its edge ecosystem in Europe to help support the delivery of new 5G-based services.
Formed via a joint venture between Liberty Global and digital infrastructure group DigitalBridge this spring, AtlasEdge already had an extensive data centre footprint of more than 100 sites. These were supported by the technical infrastructure from the the likes of Virgin Media O2 in the UK, Virgin Media in Ireland, Sunrise UPC in Switzerland and UPC in Poland.
AtlasEdge is promising to leverage carriers’ technical real estate and connectivity capacity to deliver vital edge-based infrastructure in highly connected locations to support next generation services.
It has now struck a new relationship with global data centre firm Digital Realty and fibre communications giant Zayo Group to give its business proposition a major boost.
Strategic investment
Digital Realty has selected AtlasEdge as its European edge provider and has also made a strategic equity investment in the firm. It says it will be able to extend the scale of its presence across Europe by offering AtlasEdge locations to its digital service provider customers.
Zayo Group will collaborate with AtlasEdge by connecting its extensive network with the firm’s facilities to support customer edge services.
Incidentally, just as Digital Realty got involved, one of its senior employees, strategy honcho Giuliano Di Vitantonio, became the CEO of AtlasEdge. Di Vitantonio says, “The emergence of edge computing represents another great advance for our digital society and it is fantastic to be part of the coalition developing this exciting opportunity, creating a new platform for our customers.”
Government move
It is clear the telco giants rightly want a major slice of the new service revenues that are being created, but the UK government has moved to make sure the action trickles down to smaller firms too.
It says it is seeking to “diversify” the telecoms market and stimulate the creation of products and services from small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups.
The move will support its aim of developing a domestic capability for 5G, and it’s a blueprint that will no doubt be considered by other nations wanting to prevent a small number of countries dominating 5G and future 6G standards, potential patents and data security protocols, of course.
Innovation company Plexal is working with the UK government to support the effort. Plexal says it has worked with “leaders from the telecoms market” to assess where there could be opportunities for SMEs to provide products or services.
5G sprint
Plexal has now identified SMEs that will take part in a “12-week sprint” aimed at developing robust business cases, technology roadmaps and investment plans. The aim is to create a “diverse commercial ecosystem” for 5G networks.
The SMEs will work with Plexal, the British government and industry to “carve out and develop opportunities” and “overcome any barriers” that exist for start-ups to play an active role in the telecoms market.
Barriers could include making sure the products are interoperable and have robust cyber security built into them.
Andrew Roughan, managing director of Plexal, says of the initiative, “We think there’s a big opportunity to understand and develop the role of SMEs in the telecoms market. Our open collaboration model is a novel way to approach the challenge of how the UK creates a diverse telecoms market that supports the creation of home-grown sovereign technology.”
The author is Antony Savvas, a global freelance business technology journalist.
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