Kris Szaniawski - Research Director
The shift to the cloud is top of mind for service providers, so it is no surprise to see cloud finally highlighted as one of six main themes at this year’s MWC. In the past, cloud was treated as just a subset of the 5G theme, but CloudNet now finally has its own dedicated stream. We also expect some of the following telco cloud topics to feature in conversations and announcements:
Cloud core and cloud RAN are hot areas that will figure prominently - the shift to cloud-native and service-based architectures means we will also hear more from vendors about interoperability, automation, and integration capabilities.
Edge cloud - expect to hear about initial deployments and trials, edge cloud use cases, and edge portfolio announcements, including from Google Cloud, as well as fresh mobile edge pairings between operators and cloud providers.
Security, sovereignty, and sustainability - securing the telco cloud against new vulnerabilities has become an urgent business priority, so expect plenty of noise around cybersecurity solutions. Cloud data sovereignty is an increasingly sensitive issue for operators, which will encourage hyperscalers to highlight solutions that provide flexibility to run workloads across multiple locations, such as Google Distributed Cloud. Sustainability will also be a key trend this year, although the genuine advances will fight for attention against plenty of greenwashing. SaaS—expect an increasing number of software as a service (SaaS) announcements as vendors seek to harness growing operator appetite for SaaS.
Source: Omdia
Public cloud - public cloud will continue to be hyped, but most vendors will emphasize the hybrid and cloud agnostic capabilities of their offerings.
Hyperscalers - we’ll see plenty of activity from AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, especially as hyperscalers have been recruiting strongly from the telecoms sector to support a more vertical go-to-market approach. In addition to cloud and edge, there is also increased operator appetite for strategic transformation partnerships and help with 5G cloudification, automation, orchestration, analytics, and operations.
Skills shortages - there will be plenty of concerned operator conversations about the fierce competition for IT talent, another factor making hyperscalers so indispensable.
AWS is making impressive inroads into the telecoms vertical, and some of the areas we expect it to focus on at MWC include private and public 5G, edge computing, and network automation and orchestration. We may also hear about collaboration agreements with major operators, along similar lines to DISH, if not necessarily as monogamous.
Like other vendors, Nokia will be seeking to emphasize its cloud-friendly credentials and its cloud player relationships at MWC. Nokia is also working hard to promote its SaaS delivery framework, and we expect to see several fresh SaaS announcements linked to enhancing its analytics and cybersecurity suites.
Rakuten CTO Tareq Amin was always one to watch, but there’s a new twist as he will now head up Rakuten Symphony, the new platform provider being spun off to deliver the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP) suite of open RAN, core, cloud, and intelligent operations functions required for cloud-native virtualized 4G/5G networks. Expect the latest greenfield and brownfield customer updates and new product announcements.
You can meet with Omdia's expert team at the following events:
Digital Transformation World (September 20–22, Copenhagen)
Network X – Broadband World Forum, 5G World alongside the introduction of Telco Cloud (October 18–20 2022, RAI, Amsterdam)
Future Vision Executive Summit (December 7–8, Bruges)
