Pipeline Publishing, Volume 4, Issue 9

	This Month's Issue:
	New Doors, New Access

Edge/Core Collaboration:
Navigating the Ocean

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architectural approaches that facilitate context reasoning capabilities, which are also realistic in their ability of achieving them in large scales.” [Carl Kesselman]

Soon we will be entering a period of explosive growth in deployment of intelligent network-connected devices. Before long, there will be vast arrays of sensors feeding thousands of network computers in one global communications web, and traditional service providers will carry the bits.

The Call of the Sea: The Edge Seeks Liberation and New Worlds

The above examples reinforce our understanding that the Edge can provide valuable services for customers, calling on network service providers only for fast and reliable connectivity. But are there counter-examples out there that might suggest that network service providers can completely own their customers? How about mobile voice telephony for example?

At first, the mobile phone seemed to be just a simple introduction of a new workstation that was associated with an individual (not a place) and moved with that individual. Service providers procured the handsets and resold them, built the access radio networks, and provided core connectivity. But the edge devices turned out to be smarter than needed just to make voice phone calls. This added to the perceived value of the service, and maybe service providers did not fully appreciate the power they were unleashing with this (admittedly limited) uncoupling of the edge device from the network, and adding significant processing power to these edge devices. The very nature of the service and its wide popularity brought unforeseen new requirements such as regulation demanding number portability and near real-time provider network switching; service complexity increased and service providers discovered the need for a new range of management tools.

The success of mobile services meant that edge device manufacturers could produce mobile phones in very large numbers, transforming the cell phone - not just a network edge device, but now a consumer electronics product. Today the service providers and the telecom equipment providers are beginning to lose their tight control of the boundary between the native service facility of the phone and the other applications loaded on it. Some service providers now realize that they may end up not even controlling every aspect of how future consumer edge appliances use their networks. Then Apple, a company traditionally not in the telecom space, developed the iPhone – a consumer appliance – and went looking for networks for it to use. Amazon released a more specialist consumer

The Edge is too impatient to slow down or stop to wait for network service providers to adapt to these natural changes.

appliance – the Kindle eBook reader – and bundled the wireless service with it.

We believe this trend will continue, as we already see service providers (Verizon and T-Mobile) moving in the direction of allowing more openness over their wireless networks. Far from viewing this as a sign of carrier demise, this is actually, in our opinion, a good sign. The evidence is that in the quest to innovate and find new business opportunities, the Edge will seek, and find, liberation, one way or another.

This is the ocean we find ourselves upon, and the one we must all learn to navigate safely.

Setting Course: The Case for Collaboration

The above examples illustrate that to a large extent, the Edge can fulfill David Isenberg’s prediction that carriers need do no more than deliver bits, reliably and predictably, at a reasonable cost. But this prompts the question: is this the best way to do it?

Edge service providers have some reason to regard network service providers, with their talk of walled gardens, with suspicion. Equally network service providers publicly criticize companies who make money from Edge-delivered OTT services as looking for a free ride (although no one, as far as we know, gets to connect to the Internet for free).

The Edge is too rich and complex to simply “be a service.” Capturing it in even the best product catalogue is an exercise in futility, so network service providers pick out a small part of the universe of services and edge customers (such as the Telco 2.0 and TMF push for collaboration with media) to partner with and everything else becomes a threat. “They must fight us to get what they need.” And then the edge customer just figures out a way around the network provider, since they cannot live without the network that makes the Edge services possible.

The Edge is too impatient to slow down or stop to wait for network service providers to adapt to these natural changes. When a needed facility is provided by the network operators and their vendor support system, it is used – provided no less restrictive and/or less costly method is available. If the facility is not there or is too expensive, they will build it themselves. This is the market at work. The tremendous pace of change created by a liberated edge is not consistent with

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