Verizon sees its network future in a private, telco-grade cloud
5G has long been described as the first generation of cellular born in the cloud. While that’s a reductive statement, operators are moving network functions and operational processes into the cloud, there’s a heavily-debated question: Which cloud; public, private or both? Discussing the operator’s plans for hosting network functions in the cloud, Verizon Vice President of Technology Planning and Development Bill Stone was clear that Big Red’s network will reside in a private cloud that Verizon fully controls.
In an interview with Tantra Analyst Founder Prakash Sangam during Arden Media’s recent Telco Cloud Forum, Stone said, “When it gets to the telco workloads, including what we’re talking about here today with vRAN and O-RAN, Verizon remains committed to disaggregating hardware and software and selecting the best available partner for each of the components. That’s our path forward. AT this point, our plan is to build, optimize and leverage our own telco-grade private cloud for both our core and RAN workloads. We’ll certainly continue to monitor other dynamics in the marketplace but I’ll just say, Verizon sees economic and operational benefits with our own Verizon cloud platform that will enable us to identify opportunities and scale fast.”
That stands in contrast to what DISH is doing with its greenfield build in the U.S. that’s seeing the new market entrant rely on AWS for hosting network functions. But that’s not to say Verizon isn’t working with hyperscalers. The operator has arrangements with the big three–AWS, Azure and Google Cloud–on various mobile edge computing-related initiatives, both public and private.
The Open RAN balancing act
As for Open RAN, Verizon is bullish on the evolution of its vRAN toward open, standardized interfaces. But Stone acknowledged that the multi-vendor of Open RAN increases testing timeframes and costs, as well as adds complexity to the system integration piece.
Stone said Verizon will “play a big role” in integration. “There’s going to be increasing complexity and integration costs associated with integrating different components at scale and ensuring interoperability and the level of reliability that customers demand. One of the bigger challenges in a virtual environment is integration where more focus and responsibility is on the operator and we accept that responsibility at Verizon…Extensive testing is a must. We’ve learned that. As is tight collaboration between the operators like Verizon and suppliers to integrate the functions. The more suppliers that are introduced into the RAN network, the higher the interoperability testing complexity.”
Taking on Open RAN integration and allaying concerns around trading capex for system integration opex is something of an emerging sub-industry within the telecoms sector. Rakuten Mobile picked its components, worked through integration, then built a cloud-native Open RAN network in Japan. From there, the firm spun up Rakuten Symphony to sell that model, including hardware and software components. Similarly, NTT DoCoMo is rallying its ecosystem partners into the 5G Open RAN Ecosystem (OREC) which takes a fairly similar albeit (currently) less productized approach.
What does Verizon think of that model? “Extensive testing a must,” Stone reiterated. “It doesn’t really matter to me where that testing is done. If it’s done extensively before it’s brought to Verizon, that certainly has value…That being said, one of the other things I’ve mentioned today is that our plan is to be actively engaged in evaluating the different components and selecting the best in class…So there’s a little bit of conflict between those two approaches.”
He continued: “I happen to believe somewhere between those two things is where this is optimally going to balance.”
