Overview:

Network operators have used public clouds for analytics and IT, including their business and operational support systems, but the vast majority have been reluctant to rely on hyper-scaler public clouds to host their network functions.  However, there have been a few exceptions:

1. AWS counts Boost Mobile, Dish Network, Swisscom and Telefónica Germany as network operators running part of their 5G network in its public cloud.  In a cloud-native 5G stand alone (SA) core network, the network functions are virtualized and run as software, rather than relying on dedicated hardware.

a] Dish Network is using Nokia’s cloud-native, 5G standalone core software which is deployed on the AWS public cloud. This includes software for subscriber data management, device management, packet core, voice and data core, and integration services.  Dish  invokes several AWS services, including Regions, Local Zones and Outposts, to host its 5G core network and related components. 

b] Swisscom is migrating its core applications, including OSS/BSS and portions of its 5G core, to AWS according to Business Wire. This is part of a broader digital transformation strategy to modernize its infrastructure and services. 

c] Telefónica Germany (O2 Telefónica) has moved its 5G core network to Amazon Web Services (AWS). This move, in collaboration with Nokia, makes them the first telecom company to switch an existing 5G core to a public cloud provider, specifically AWS. They launched their 5G cloud core, built entirely in the cloud, in July 2024, initially serving around one million subscribers. 

2. Microsoft’s Azure cloud is running AT&T and the Middle East’s Etisalat 5G core network. AT&T is using Microsoft’s Azure Operator Nexus platform to run its 5G core network, including both standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) deployments, according to AT&T and Microsoft. This move is part of a strategic partnership between the two companies where AT&T is shifting its 5G mobile network to the Microsoft cloud.  However, AT&T’s 5G core network is not yet commercially available nationwide.

3. Ericsson has partnered with Google Cloud to offer 5G core as a service (5GCaaS) leveraging Google Cloud’s infrastructure. This allows operators to deploy and manage their 5G core network functions on Google’s cloud, rather than relying solely on traditional on-premises infrastructure.  This Ericsson on-demand service recently launched with Google seems aimed mainly at smaller telcos, keen to avoid big upfront costs, or specific scenarios. To address much bigger needs, Google has an Outposts competitor it markets under the brand of Google Distributed Cloud (or GDC).

A serious concern with this Ericsson -Google offering is cloud provider lock-in, i.e. that a telco would not be able to move its 5GCaaS provided by Ericsson to an alternative cloud platform. Going “native,” in this case, meant building on top of Google-specific technologies, which rules out any prospect of a “lift and shift” to AWS, Microsoft or someone else, said Eric Parsons, Ericsson’s vice president of emerging segments in core networks, on a recent call with Light Reading.

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Google Cloud for Network Functions:

Angelo Libertucci, Google’s global head of telecom told Light Reading, the “timing is right” for a Google campaign that targets telco networks after years of sluggish industry progress. “The pressures that telcos are dealing with – the higher capex, lower ARPU [average revenue per user], competitiveness – it’s been a tough two years and there have been a number of layoffs, at least in North America,” he told Light Reading at last week’s Digital Transformation World event in Copenhagen.

“We run the largest private network on the planet,” said Libertucci. “We have over 2 million miles of fiber.” Services for more than a billion users are supported “with a fraction of the people that even the smallest regional telcos have, and that’s because everything we do is automated,” he claimed.

“There haven’t been that many network functions that run in the cloud – you can probably name them on less than four fingers,” he said. “So we don’t think we’ve really missed the boat yet on that one.” Indeed, most network functions are still deployed on telco premises (aka central offices).

Image Credit: Google Cloud Platform

Deutsche Telekom has partnered with Google earlier this year to build an agentic AI called RAN Guardian, which can assess network data, detect performance issues and even take corrective action without manual intervention.  Built using Gemini 2.0 in Vertex AI from Google Cloud, the agent can analyze network behavior, detect performance issues, and implement corrective actions to improve network reliability, reduce operational costs, and enhance customer experiences.  Deutsche Telekom keeps the network data at its own facilities but relies on interconnection to Google Cloud for the above listed functions.

“Do I then decide to keep it (network functions and data) on-prem and maintain that pre-processing pipeline that I have? Or is there a cost benefit to just run it in cloud, because then you have all the native integration? You don’t have any interconnect, you have all the data for any use case that you ever wanted or could think of. It’s much easier and much more seamless.” Such autonomous networking, in his view, is now the killer use case for the public cloud.

Yet many telco executives believe that public cloud facilities are incapable of handling certain network functions.  European telcos including BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Vodafone, have made investments in their own private cloud platforms for their telco workloads.  Also, regulators in some countries may block operators from using public clouds. BT this year said local legislation now prevents it from using the public cloud for network functions. European authorities increasingly talk of the need for a “sovereign cloud” under the full control of local players.

Google does claim to have a set of “sovereign cloud” products that ensure data is stored in the country where the telco operates. “We have fully air-gapped sovereign cloud offerings with Google Cloud binaries that we’ve done in partnership with telcos for years now,” said Libertucci. The uncertainty is whether these will always meet the definition. “If sovereign means you can’t use an American-owned organization, then that’s another part of the definition that somehow we will have to find a way to address,” he added.  “If you are cloud-native, it’s supposed to be easier to move to any cloud, but with telco it’s not that simple because it’s a very performance-oriented workload,” said Libertucci.

What’s likely, then, is that operators will assign whole regions to specific combinations of public cloud providers and telco vendors, he thinks, as they have done on the network side. “You see telcos awarding a region to Huawei and another to Ericsson with complete separation between them. They might choose to go down that route with network vendors as well and so you may have an Ericsson and Google part of the network.”

“We’re a platform company, we’re a data company and we’re an AI company,” said Libertucci. “I think we’re happy now with being a platform others develop on.”

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Cloud RAN Disappoints:

Outside a trial with Ericsson almost two years ago, there is not much sign of Google activity in cloud RAN, the use of general-purpose chips and cloud platforms to support RAN workloads. “So far, no one’s really pushed us down into that area,” said Libertucci. AWS, by contrast, has this year begun to show off an Outposts server built around one of its own Graviton central processing units for cloud RAN. Currently, however, it does not appear to be supporting a cloud RAN deployment for any telco.

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References:

https://www.lightreading.com/cloud/google-preps-public-cloud-charge-at-telecom-as-microsoft-wobbles

Deutsche Telekom and Google Cloud partner on “RAN Guardian” AI agent