Dish Network doesn’t describe its recent agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as an exclusive arrangement, but it sure looks and sounds like one.
The aspiring greenfield network operator is housing everything it can in the cloud and, for it, that cloud is entirely AWS. “I think we’re going to be their largest customer in cloud, and I think they may be the largest customer in our network,” Charlie Ergen, Dish’s co-founder and chairman, said last week during the company’s earnings call.
“Everything north of the base station, the site, is in the cloud,” Dish EVP and Chief Network Officer Marc Rouanne said, adding that Dish is also targeting multiple options for edge computing with AWS. One of those options involves the use of AWS Outposts, a small rack of Amazon-supplied equipment and fully managed services that effectively places the AWS cloud directly into an enterprise’s network.
That will allow Dish to put its software, riding on AWS, at the edge, Rouanne explained. Dish is also working with AWS to build what he described as a “next generation distributed unit,” the compute part of an open radio access network, that will allow it to bring more cloud-based services to the RAN as well, he said.
The early phase of that work is built around Intel’s FlexRAN reference architecture, but it’s also working with AWS on a second generation of the cloud-based RAN architecture riding on a broadening effort at Qualcomm to establish a similar technical blueprint using its forthcoming 5G RAN silicon, Rouanne explained.
That follow-on effort will provide for higher speeds, massive multiple input, multiple output (MIMO), the use of shared CBRS spectrum, and other technologies, according to Rouanne.
Dish Weaves 5G Aspirations Tightly Into AWS
Dish’s plans with AWS are expansive, no matter how you slice it, and it’s diving deep into the cloud precisely because it’s starting from scratch, building a fully cloud-native, open RAN 5G network.
Analysts broadly conclude that the contract between the public cloud leader and Dish is a major win for AWS as it strives to earn broad business with operators that are increasingly sliding into the cloud for core network workloads and operations.
Nick McQuire, chief of enterprise research at CCS Insight, said the deal with Dish reinforced his view that AWS is leading the telco cloud space today. “The proof of the pudding in my mind as to the trust that telcos are putting into AWS at the moment is when you start to see deals like Dish,” he told SDxCentral.
Dish’s greenfield status means it doesn’t have the legacy constraints of existing operators or the general nervousness carriers have about the ultimate role of cloud providers, but it’s a significant milestone nonetheless in that Dish has determined AWS has the right tools and infrastructure in place today to build its network upon, McQuire explained.
There hasn’t to date been a deal of this scope and effective exclusivity with one cloud provider from other network operators, he added.
Dish also inked an agreement with VMware last summer to provide the underlying cloud platform and infrastructure to power its network, but in that role, VMware is acting as a horizontal cloud player and platform provider that allows Dish to assemble software and network functions from multiple vendors for its network operations and management.
“Formulating a partnership with Dish on the RAN connectivity only bolsters AWS’s position in the telco cloud market,” said Sid Nag, VP of cloud services and technology at Gartner.
AWS Earns ‘Best In Class’ Nod From Dish
Prior to going all-in with AWS, Dish tested its requirements with all of the major cloud providers, according to Ergen. “At the end of the day, Amazon had too big of a head start. They jumped in really early. They wanted to get into the telco space. It was strategic for them,” he said on the earnings call.
“The cloud infrastructure, as it existed a couple years ago, really didn’t handle telco very well, but there’s been a lot of research and development and investment they’ve had to make to transform their network into something where a telco can operate in the cloud because it’s a little bit different than their traditional IT infrastructure,” Ergen said.
He called AWS “best in class for what we needed,” including AWS’s APIs, discipline, and the community of developers that support AWS that could help Dish reach into the enterprise market.
Patrick Filkins, senior analyst at IDC, took a higher-level view of Dish’s work with AWS, insofar as it underlines the critical role public cloud providers can and will have in the nascent open RAN space. “This is as much about proving out cloud-native RAN functions on the public cloud as it is about open RAN itself,” he said.
“Specifications in development by the O-RAN Alliance are not fully completed. A handful are considered final, but others are not,” Filkins added.
Many network operators, in the short term, will be piecing together O-RAN compliant solutions rather than deploying a truly end-to-end open RAN network, he explained. “Eventually, I expect communications service providers to achieve end-to-end open RAN,” and that’s where the industry as a whole is better positioned to employ multi-cloud frameworks from more than one vendor, he added.
Ergen, for his part, is fully on board with AWS and doesn’t appear to be wavering on that decision. “I think other carriers around the world, including the United States, will look at Amazon as a real leader here,” he said.
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May 06, 2021 at 07:00PM
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Surveying the Aftermath of Dish's 5G Cloud Deal With AWS - SDxCentral
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