O2 Telefónica will also use a unified set of AWS services, including Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus and Amazon Managed Grafana, to monitor its entire 5G network
German telco O2 Telefónica Germany, owned by Spanish operator Telefónica, has selected Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its cloud provider for network workloads.
The European operator noted that this multi-year agreement, signed during Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025, builds on the previous deployment of O2 Telefónica’s 5G SA Core on AWS in July 2024. As part of this expansion, O2 Telefónica will extend its 5G core implementation on AWS, deploying the 5G core data plane within its data centers using AWS Outposts racks to support network-intensive workloads. Additionally, the company will begin deploying IMS voice services on AWS Graviton processors this year.
O2 Telefónica will also use a unified set of AWS services, including Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus and Amazon Managed Grafana, to monitor its entire 5G network. Furthermore, network operations will be streamlined with AWS analytics and machine learning tools, such as Amazon Athena and Amazon SageMaker, for advanced data analysis and predictive insights.
Mallik Rao, chief technology and enterprise officer at O2 Telefónica, said: “The start of our 5G cloud core marks a decisive step in the transformation of our network architecture. We are proud to have the first fully cloud-native 5G core network deployed on AWS with a million subscribers already being served through it. The new AWS Outposts racks harmonize with our next phase in our development of the network of the future, catering to the high throughput and low latency needs of our nationwide 5G core.”
Fabio Cerone, general manager, AWS Telco Business Unit EMEA, said: “This multi-year agreement where O2 Telefónica selects AWS as cloud provider for all the network functions across 5G core and IMS voice, marks a pivotal moment in the Telco industry. This agreement comes into place after a long journey culminated in the deployment of the 5G SA core of O2 Telefónica in Germany on AWS back in July 2024.
In a separate release, O2 Telefonica Germany announced its intent to enter into a strategic partnership with Google Cloud to drive the cloud transformation of its 5G network, collaborating closely with Nokia. Based on the successful cooperation on charging solutions for mobile customers, O2 Telefónica now wants to expand its collaboration and said it considers to move further 5G functions like Nokia’s Policy Control Functions to Google Cloud.
“This work with Google Cloud and Nokia is a significant step in O2 Telefónica’s technology transformation. We have already gained valuable experience with Google Cloud and are now extending this collaboration. By embracing cloud-native solutions, we are modernizing our network to deliver the next generation of 5G services to our customers,” Rao said.
In October 2023, O2 Telefónica announced the launch of its 5G SA network in the country under the 5G Plus brand. Until this launch, the German telco had been offering 5G services through the NonStandalone (NSA) 5G architecture partly via its LTE/4G core network.
The carrier’s 5G Plus uses frequencies in the 700 MHz, 1.8 GHz and 3.6 GHz bands.
The telco said it expects its 5G SA service to reach full coverage in Germany by the end of 2025.
