Depending on how you wish to view it, Google’s new Global Mobile Edge Cloud strategy, which will deliver a portfolio and marketplace of 5G solutions built jointly with telecommunications companies, is about as good a role as connectivity providers likely can hope for, or stark recognition that a real estate play was always going to be the role service providers would assume.
Google Cloud and AT&T announced they will work together to “help enterprises take advantage of Google Cloud’s technologies and capabilities using AT&T network connectivity at the edge.”
The deal seems similar in some ways to Verizon's deal with the AWS Wavelength service, which puts AWS computing solutions at the edge of Verizon's mobile network.
One might translate that as “computing at the edge will be supplied by Google, racks, energy, cooling and security at the edge by AT&T,” albeit with access using the low-latency 5G network.
The two companies are testing a portfolio of 5G edge computing solutions for industries, such as retail, manufacturing, and transportation, that bring together AT&T’s network, Google Cloud’s leading technologies including AI/ML and Kubernetes, and edge computing to help enterprises address real business challenges, Google says.
Google Cloud also announced Anthos for Telecom, which will bring its Anthos cloud platform to the network edge, allowing telecommunications companies to run their applications wherever it makes the most sense.
Google also might partner with telecommunications companies to rapidly enable a global distributed edge by lighting up thousands of edge locations that are already deployed in telecom networks. The language is “can do so,” rather than “will do so.”
The danger of such strategies is that they essentially keep connectivity providers in the "connections" role, with some modest revenue upside as suppliers of edge computing real estate. But that likely was always going to be the outcome for telcos in the edge computing business.
It is, after all, "computing" which is the product. "Edge" is simply where it happens.
The danger of such strategies is that they essentially keep connectivity providers in the "connections" role, with some modest revenue upside as suppliers of edge computing real estate. But that likely was always going to be the outcome for telcos in the edge computing business.
It is, after all, "computing" which is the product. "Edge" is simply where it happens.
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