Google Cloud announces the provision of 5G core and RAN comprehensive services for telecom operators
2021-10-18
On April 21 this year, Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon, announced that communication service provider DISH Network has chosen AWS as its preferred cloud provider and will build its network on 5G AWS. AWS will not only provide network architecture and software products for DISH, but also some hardware products. The cooperative relationship between AWS and DISH is something that telecom operators have never had before with Ericsson and Nokia equipment providers. Now, not only AWS, Microsoft Azure, but Google Cloud are all eager to try.
Google today announced that they will provide distributed cloud services for telecom operators, allowing operators to run their 5G core and RAN functions on Google Cloud. Google to telecom operators will no longer be the relationship that Ericsson or Nokia meant to operators. The technological development of network virtualization has gradually separated software from hardware. In theory, telecom operators can rely on public clouds to provide services. If Google Cloud’s public cloud is cheaper or more profitable than the operator’s self-built private cloud, a super cloud service provider like Google Cloud can become a provider of telecom operators. Their current application management platform Anthos also The container collaboration platform Kubernetes can already do a lot. But the problem is also that they will have a higher right to speak in the future. The right to manage hardware means that in the future, regardless of Cisco, Dell or HPE equipment, or Intel, Nvida chips, they will need to be approved by Google Cloud before they can be deployed to the operator's network.
In the past, telecom operators had struggled to get rid of the lock on equipment providers. Although getting rid of Huawei's RAN equipment has made many European operators miserable, it will become impossible to get rid of public cloud service providers like Google in the future, like withdrawing from underworld organizations.
Yves Bellego, director of network strategy at France Telecom Orange, said, “A few years ago, everyone was saying that we have been bound by companies such as Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia, but no one mentioned Oracle and Cisco. Now the problem is transferred to the super data center. The risks inside have actually not disappeared."
