Telefonica Germany will move one million 5G customers to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud later this month, company executives told Reuters, in a bold move by the U.S. online retailer to break into the global telecoms market.
While some telecom networks have moved IT and other non-core
operations to the public cloud, the move by Spanish group Telefonica’s
subsidiary is a global first in which an existing mobile operator moves its
core network to a public cloud.
Major companies that provide cloud computing services, such
as Amazon and Microsoft, have tried to move more into the telecom sector, lured
by billions of dollars in potential revenue, but operators have been wary of
the capabilities of public clouds in managing a mobile network.
“I want it to work for at least one to two quarters and have
a roadmap to move at least 30-40% of my customer base by 2025-2026,” said
Mallik Rao, Chief Technology & Information Officer at O2 Telefonica, also
known as Telefonica Germany .
The company has 45 million customers in Germany.
AWS and O2 Telefonica did not disclose financial details of
the deal.
The core network, which consists of powerful servers in data
centers, is the heart of a mobile network that routes data and calls securely
and at high speed. A public cloud will reduce costs, increase scale, and handle
repairs without disrupting service.
American Dish, which built its mobile network from scratch,
became the only telecom company in 2021 to use the AWS cloud as its core
network.
“Dish was much simpler because they didn’t have existing
systems that had to be adapted to work with the cloud,” AWS vice president Jan
Hofmeyr said in an interview.
Nokia, which also worked with Dish, will provide the
software and AWS will provide the infrastructure for Telefónica.
Telefónica first worked with AWS and Ericsson and then
switched to Nokia and AWS, Rao said. “The days of trial are over. I don’t want
to keep trying.”
The global telecom cloud market is expected to reach $108.7
billion by 2030, up from $19.7 billion in 2021, making it a growth engine for
companies like Amazon.
“We want to make it a company that runs telecom workloads,”
AWS’s Hofmeyr said, adding that the company expects more deals with other
operators in the next 12 months.
“I would say that in most cases the discussion is about
timing and whether we should move to the cloud.” -Reuters
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