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5G Edge Deployments Enable New App Development

More computing power is moving to the edge of mobile networks and it's going to be amazing. 5G Edge Computing will provide a foundation for the development of enterprise use cases and industry vertical applications. To capture the value at stake, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) will use new data.

CSPs are seeking sustainable growth as a source of competitive advantage in the Global Networked Economy. That demands an IT and network infrastructure that's conducive to data collection, storage, processing, and analysis.

A key element of this data infrastructure is a data management facility available on a 24/7 basis. That's an essential first step to fully capture the value of data, according to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research.

5G Edge Computing Market Development

The quest to pursue new revenue streams and the need to streamline telco operations are the driving forces behind a 5G data infrastructure layer. Many CSPs are already on a journey to unlock value from analytics and their data repositories.

AT&T, Telefonica, and Vodafone are some operators, among many others, that have an internal data strategy in place based on network, customers, and Internet of Things (IoT) data sources to enable cost efficiencies and drive innovation.

"The shift to a data-driven organization is certainly at the forefront of their transformation agenda and successful commercialization of enterprise and industrial 5G," said Don Alusha, senior analyst at ABI Research.

Data serves as a major source of competitive advantage to foster new value creation. Data-driven organizations consistently outperform those that do not utilize the value of data along with key metrics -- such as margin profitability, productivity, and operational efficiency.

For IT and telecom vendors, it is crucial that they enhance their data management solutions with features and options that are both substantial, and differentiated, as they support CSPs to diversify their commercial operations.

The question that vendors should use to frame their market development strategy is how their solution is engineered for cloud environments. To that end, some vendors have enhanced their data infrastructure offering with cloud-native, fully elastic, and highly scalable capabilities suitable for software-centric 5G networks.

According to the ABI assessment, the CSP community should aim to drive a unified data strategy across its operations and tie the business logic at the service layer with a 5G network data platform. A strategy for a robust data infrastructure is going to be at the center of new commercial forays, particularly enterprise 5G.

For CSPs to compete effectively with data as the foundation, they must get three things right: the intelligent connectivity to connect with data infrastructure platforms; the education to get their workforce innovating on, working off of, and tapping into a data-centric telco ecosystem; and a data governance system to get the best out of this ecosystem.

Outlook for 5G Edge Computing Application Development

With a robust data governance system in place, CSPs can accelerate their digital transformation by effectively using data to bolster its competitive positioning in the market. Data volumes are growing exponentially and the types of data that organizations are collecting and analyzing are also growing.

"Data governance can serve as a one-stop-shop facility to establish clear links from data collection, processing, and applying intelligent insights to decision making," Alusha concludes.

I believe that there will be an increasing demand for vendor professional services that enable telecom service providers to develop a business case for the adoption of this new technology, and put in place the required operational processes that will ensure the success of this digital growth strategy.

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