The Future State of the Industry- 5G, Cloud & Edge Ecosystems

At the recently held Voice&Data’s Telecom Leadership Forum's 5G Conference, there was a panel discussion on The Future State of the Industry- 5G, Cloud and Edge Ecosystems. The panelists included Saurabh Mittal, Head- Product Management Solutions & Integration, Network R&D, Bharti Airtel; Sivakumar Selva Ganapathy, VP, Johnson Controls; and Sameer Vuyyuru, Head of WW Business Development for Communication Service Providers, Amazon Web Services (AWS). The session was moderated by Anil Chopra, VP, Research and Consulting, Cybermedia.

Cybermedia’s Anil Chopra introduced the 5G, Edge and Cloud Ecosystems session by looking at some of the market data, growth predictions, key technologies that are going to enable and enhance 5G rollouts. “If I were to look at some of the numbers, I think there's a massive amount of growth expected in all three areas.  I think 40% of subscribers predicted in the next five years are going to be on 5G. That's the kind of growth we're talking about. Cloud has already seen about 30% growth over the past year itself. For Edge, around 40%, growth is expected in the next five to seven years. So it's important, to talk about the role of all these technologies in enabling 5G rollout.

The first question was posed to Sameer Vuyyuru of AWS. 5G standard has been written to be cloud native. Now, what's the best way to use the cloud when we talk about using 5G? Is it hybrid? Is it private? Or is it using one of the hyperscalers like Amazon? What is your suggestion?

Sameer said, “We've all talked about the return on capital. There's two ways to inflect return on capital. One is grow the top line. But equally important is to reduce the amount of capital expenditure. So pick the best combination of technologies that enables you to do both. Call me biased, but I think the public cloud allows you to inflect both sides. We've talked about how much money and where our telco partners are making with us in my session earlier. On the flip side, take it to an extreme again, there is no capital expenditure. If you build your network on AWS, it is a pay-as-you-go model where you align the revenue streams with your costs, which is ideally what you want to do, and not overbuild. Take advantage of the elasticity, take advantage of the geographic reach, if the infrastructure is already there, why not use it?

Sivakumar Selva Ganapathy of Johnson Controls added, "Johnson Controls has been into, a lot of automation and building automation. So obviously, the edge becomes really important. How is edge becoming a viable choice now? Is it going to really enable 5G scaling as the need arises? Are we seeing edge computing and 5G as the next level of digital transformation? We're going to look at how 5G can really accelerate in terms of edge and cloud-based offerings to our customers if we start from the customer-centric perspective. In order to do that, the fleet and the diversity of devices and assets we have from an enterprise context are pretty huge. It is local to a particular country, and then to regions and across the globe as well. So here, we are looking at both cloud and the edge. 5G is going to be a key accelerator for this kind of IT and OT integration, particularly the scale. Also from a Cloud Native perspective, it's going to be very important to provide a tailored, bundle-based offering to our customers, because particularly in the Indian context, the customers are very diverse. From a commercial standpoint, we have large, ambitious enterprise customers who can afford it, and then we also have a set of customers who are very price sensitive. So that is where I think both cloud native and Edge are going to play a key role in terms of handling this monsoon of data to provide a rich experience to the end customers, that could be businesses, enterprises, and consumers across verticals.

Anil Chopra said, if we look at 5G, it offers a massive and ultra-reliable machine-type communication. And then we've got cloud, working along with that. Do you really see this as a game changer in terms of delivering 5G services, and establishing some of the really good use cases?

Saurabh Mittal of Bharti Airtel said, 5G is associated with speed. I'm going to give an acronym, which is PACE for Speed Plus. Let's look at how 5G through PACE is going to be a game changer.

P - stands for programmability. 5G inherently makes the network programmable to the needs of the application, user or enterprise. That's the fundamental part of it. We have seen technologies like network slicing. There are components in the network, which essentially make the network more programable.

A - stands for automation. Whether you take AI/ML, or the way the network analytics actually are made available. And if you look at the self-organizing networks, this is something which was talked about a lot in the 4G space as well, but inherently the way the fundamental technologies are built up in the 5G, this is far more automated and self-learning, which is lending itself to the AI/ ML part of it. This is one of the fundamental beauties of 5G. You can essentially use it in the manner you want it.

C - is for the capability of 5G. Whether it is machine type, massive machine communications, whether there is URLLC (Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications) type of use cases or the Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) itself. These are the fundamental different capabilities, which have been added by 5G. For example, coming to a manufacturing facility or large warehouses which have multiple sensors, if the technology used was Wi Fi, Wi Fi6, Wi Fi7, 5G it essentially gives a much more predictable environment. These are the inherent capabilities in 5G, which actually make it stand out as an access technology to be used for a plethora of use cases.

E - is for the exposure capabilities in 5G. Now, there are standardized API's which are getting exposed through the functions called NEF (Network Exposure Function), which 3GPP has defined, making it possible to be used and consumed by the applications of the use cases.

This is something that was put up by 3GPP or the standardization bodies in 4G. People tried to build a lot of API gateways. But these were not standard-based, and hence, were not fully exploited. The last E essentially makes 5G an innovation platform for all different kinds of use cases. This is how 5G is enabling pace, and pace is speed plus. So it is not just speed. The pace of 5G, is what makes it a differentiator, and a game changer.

Anil Chopra extended the question further by asking AWS' Sameer Vuyyuru about using the infrastructure as Sameer has been handling the telco business in the US. If I were to look at using the public cloud for telcos, how do you look at the data security and regulatory requirements of some of the telecom workloads?

Sameer said, “Fundamentally, security is job number one for us at AWS. You will hear that over and over again. All data is encrypted all the time - at rest or in transit. We use quantum key encryption and all of that. We've been selected by national security agencies, financial exchanges, health care, and real-time applications. It's something that we deeply understand.” He continued, but I want to pivot to the edge for a minute. We tend to associate edge with low latency. But our view is that the edge serves three laws. One is the law of the land, when you need the data to be within a certain geography, or in a certain enterprise. That's when you bring the AWS cloud into that environment, whether it's a county, whether it's a State, whether it's a single enterprise. So that's the law of the land. The second biggest driver is the law of economics because it is going to be impossible to transport all of the data generated to a central processing facility or a central cloud location for it to be acted upon intelligently. So the ability to intelligently distribute processing, storage, algorithmic execution for AI/ ML, where the data resides, takes your cost down 80 to 90%, as we've seen in the computer vision use case. Otherwise, you're paying for petabytes of transport to a central cloud. And then comes the law of physics, which is latency. And what you will find is that in a lot of places where we have the infrastructure, just do a ping to the AWS cloud, and you will see in 20 to 30 to 40 milliseconds today, without an additional edge and where we need that additional law of physics constraint. We have multiple engagements with telcos. We have partnered with a service called Wavelength, with Verizon with KDDI, with Vodafone, and so on. We have outposts, which is a private Mac. We have IoT Core, which sits on the devices themselves and provides decisioning there. So the edge is really wherever the data is. That's the mental model you should be looking at through those three laws.

A question from the audience was “5G has spawned a number of MVNOs in the US. Do you think there is an opportunity for that to happen here, if so why? If not, why not? Sameer answered saying, “We've deployed quite a few MVNOs and I was running natively on AWS today. So I've been privy to why they have done it. And the reason actually has nothing to do with 5G. It is about the industry expertise that they bring.  If you make 5G a simple bolt-on, and trivialize deployment of it, the economic structure is that connectivity is only 10% of the total consumption of an enterprise. The people who are serving the other 90% are the industry-specific SI's, and industry-specific IP owners like Johnson Controls, for them, it's a simple add-on at this point. 5G is cloud-native, which means you can click a button and turn it on. And so you're going to start seeing competition in that private network space, from people who are deeply embedded and know the industry. And that's why these enterprise-specific mobile virtual network operators are easy to deploy now.

I think it also presents an opportunity for the established telcos to really create those specific industry vertical spinouts quickly. If you look at the S curve, just create a bunch of start-ups, you need two people, three people who are really familiar with the industry, and the tools that are available out there. Go launch an MVNO, I can launch an MVNO spectrum V-link, in two or three days. Siva of Johnson Controls also responded to the question saying, “it also depends upon the India market, particularly which vertical we are targeting. And definitely, we'll have to pick and choose which vertical an MVNO is really required and then deploy,  instead of a one size fits all. So it really depends upon what market segment we are looking at, and deploying it. We should be able to experiment and then take it forward.

Airtel’s Saurabh Mittal added, “being from a service provider it is a very tricky question to answer. The only thing I will add is that on the telco side, we are investing a lot in the industry verticals. Whether this is an MVNO or whether this is within the larger telco umbrella, I think that's immaterial. What is important is to experiment. At the end, the service experience has to be predictable for these use cases to succeed. Everybody brings their own expertise. Telcos bring the expertise of running the network and ensuring the KPI - SLAs, which are required for these industry verticals to succeed. If it is just connectivity, there are technologies like Laura, Wi Fi six or seven, which exist. Where 5G becomes different is the predictability and ensuring the KPI SLAs, which are needed to make these new use cases succeed. And this is what the telcos are great at. So my sense is that Telcos have been investing a lot, working with the right set of partners. I don’t mean to say that telcos know everything. No! We are working with a SI's, and many partners to see how to actually build these capabilities in India. There are multiple models. Some models have succeeded in Western countries. I'm sure there are new models which can emerge at other locations, and the telcos are very well positioned to take this forward with the enterprises ensuring whatever is needed gets done to make this happen.

Anil posed a question to Siva of Johnson Controls, “we talked about how 5G and edge can be the next level of digital transformation, but you didn't bring in the cloud. So if I were to look at cloud edge and 5G, do you really see that as game-changing for some of the things that you do? You've been doing a lot of IoT, being in the IoT space.

Siva said, “Definitely, I think there are two patterns emerging. One is how do we cloudify and at the same time, how do we edgify. It is going to be a mix, it's not going to be one versus the other. A few years ago, there used to be a term called lift and shift - from on-prem to cloud or cloudify. Those days are gone. It'll still happen, but that's not the real transformation the market and our customers are looking at. Then we will say, Okay, let's refractor the architecture and make sure it is cloud-enabled. Now, with the volume of data, we are at a point in time where we have to really look at how to start a Greenfield and by design make sure it is cloud-native, and leverage concepts like containerization, so that we give our end customers an ala carte menu to pick and choose what they need. Remember, we are also talking about return on investment, and how to grow the top line and the bottom line. It is very important to cater to customer needs. If you're going to give a grand buffet when appetite is really low, nobody's going to take it. So it's very important to really look at that cloud-native approach, leveraging microservices, architecture, and also monetize those through API's, and of course, being very secure about it, particularly on the edge side of it where we are looking at edge cloud, particularly in the telco sector. Really looking at concepts like MEG etc, to have closer-to-the-device, how to do advanced analytics for the telco operators themselves to look at, monitor, self-heal using advanced analytics concepts and make those cognitive impacts to maintain it well, and run and also provide value-added services to the end consumers. That's how I see how cloud and Edge are going to interplay with each other. Whatever is needed at the edge, having security reliability, low latency and advanced analytics. At the same time, whatever we need, let's say real-time, less payload, less transport cost, etc, we move it to the cloud, and then interplay with it. So that co-mingling is going to stay. And that's the pattern we are looking at.

Sameer Vuyyyuru added to that saying, “The mental model of the edge has got to change. The edge is wherever the data is. Speaking for AWS, if you're in Metro, Bombay, all of Metro Bombay is the edge, because, we have a region there. Whereas if you're accessing it out of Thiruvananthapuram, you will need an edge cloud deployed there to get the same benefits. So in our view, there is no discrete edge, no discrete cloud. The cloud extends and stretches to wherever the data is including on the smallest chipsets available that run sensors. That is also the edge. That is also the cloud. There is no difference.

The moderator’s last question for the session was on the importance of partnerships between Cloud, Edge, 5G and Telcos. He asked the panelists to mention the advantages of partnerships, and how that would scale up 5G deployment going forward. All three panelists emphasized on the importance of partnerships between all ecosystem players. Sameer Vuyurru illustrated his point using real-life examples. In 2021, AWS announced that Dish networks in the United States was building a cloud-native network on AWS. In 15 months, without any infrastructure investment, it is serving roughly 100 million population today. It could not have happened without all of the ecosystem players, the BSS players like Amdocs, TelcoDR, the Core and RAN manufacturers, the Samsungs, the NECs, and Nokias, all of them committing to becoming cloud-native to build that. So there are literally more than 50 partners that ran on AWS to help to make it enable that network to be built at that speed.  The key is a uniform development environment. Everyone's operating on the same environment. One of them doesn't have their own private stack and the other one doesn't have their own private stack. The tools that you see out there are what the IT guys use. The AWS console is the orchestration engine. So speed, very low cost of capital and many, many use cases that they've deployed to b2b.

Johnson Controls’ Siva said, we are in a world of interconnected relationships, or 360 degree relationships, if you will. So, it's very important to have partnerships, customer relationships, suppliers relationships, etc. We wear different hats depending upon the context in which we are. Particularly with telcos and hyperscalers and 5G, etc., we also have another set of stakeholders to cater to. When we talk about transformation, it's our collective responsibility to really make sure that we responsibly transform. We are also looking at other kinds of partnerships to look at how we make sure this kind of, not specific to 5G, but any kind of technology transformation, we are looking at being environment and eco friendly, we are also sourcing material that is sustainable. Partnerships are very critical for any transformation. Particularly for this 5G In telco where there are different points of view. With all these microcells and Antennas, there is an impact of bird migration pattern, and some of the colonial bees and their fertility. etc. So it's very important that partnership is key and both outside in and inside out. And also another critical aspect is digital literacy. So we are talking about in Indian context of urban and semi-urban and rural. So what kind of partnerships we need to really leverage to improve literacy and the kind of offerings we give, how they adopted and adapted as well. So partnership is key, it's very complex, and it's intermingled.

Airtel’s Saurabh Mittal said, From a telco perspective, telcos have been used to working with a model called single-neck-to-choke. You have a partner and you work with them on certain KPI SLA, this has been the strength of most telcos. But the world is definitely changing. Telcos understand that this is now an ecosystem, which has to be supported by each other. There is this term 'frenemies' - friends and enemies have to work together to solve the customer issues at the end of day. The second important part is a bit overlooked. For a great experience for the consumer, and to the enterprise, there are various domains, which essentially have to come together. If you look at it just from a network perspective, and especially with the cloudification, and virtualization, many things come together. There is a core network, then you have a radio network, and then you have the devices, and of course, all the automation and the orchestration which goes along with it. The person having expertise in devices probably doesn't understand ABC of the core networks or the automation, the person understanding the radio network, he doesn't probably care about the automation. The partnership is a model to actually overcome, these kinds of challenges. These are not intersecting circles, but a union of these circles. So partnership is a model, which actually has to be there to deliver to the business outcomes. From an Airtel perspective, we have been working with, hyper scalers, whether it is private clouds, whether it is infrastructure providers on the compute side, storage side, down to the chipset levels, when it comes to the SI parts. There are a whole bunch of ecosystem players that we work with, to deliver on most of these use cases.