Telcos have got a new competitive edge

Rebuilding the network using cloud-native approach through disaggregation is the best solution for operators willing to build future-ready infrastructure

- HANNES GREDLER

Since the pandemic changed the way many people in the world live their lives, there have been radical shifts in consumer behaviour towards content usage. Whether it’s streaming films rather than going to a theatre, playing games online or making video calls on a smartphone in lieu of seeing friends and family in-person, the massive increase in data consumption has challenged network operators’ perspectives on building future-ready network infrastructures.

Telecom operators are now forced to rethink how data moves across the internet, including the way in which private, public and hybrid clouds function to deliver it. On top of this, they also need to rethink and redesign the deployment and management of their infrastructure, to accommodate the convergence of data across wired and wireless networks.

The ability to deliver low latency at mass scale and linking users to compute and storage, has driven operators in search of new ways to simplify implementation, and provide some level of resource cost control. One way in which to do this is through re-evaluating the network at the edge. By deploying merchant silicon platforms together with the latest networking software, telecom service providers now have another option in enabling new edge services.

Network edge explained

The edge is where the action is. The term ‘network edge’ refers to edge compute locations that are physical sites or points of presence (PoPs) owned by an operator. This can mean a central office hosting a mobile network resource or an ISP’s node.