Now On Demand- Delivery at the Edge, over 5G Networks- CET 2021
As mobile network radio and backhaul connections are limited, challenges to revenue streams for Telcos exist. There are new innovations that bring the edge CDNs, that deliver a remarkable QoE in a mobile network and make them more attractive to video service providers.
Watch this executive Telco session on how leveraging the Telco Edge Cloud can build video streaming services for mobile and FWA users.
Executive Speakers:
Kevin Shatzkamer - Digital Transformation Officer, Google Cloud
Cristina Rodriguez - VP/GM Wireless Access Network Division, Intel
Neil McRae - Group Chief Architect, British Telecom
Yann Bégassat - Business Development Director, 5G & Edge, Broadpeak
Transcription Details
Time: 33:40
Transcription Results
SPEAKERS
Yann Bégassat, Various Speakers, Kevin Shatzkamer, Host, Cristina Rodriguez, Neil McRae
Host:
As video streaming is one of the most prolific applications for 5G and other technologies, it's also taxing the cellular network at a rate of 30% per year. This increased video traffic will present challenges on the horizon, but the good news is the industry is meeting and exceeding those challenges as innovations both in [unintelligible: 00:25] and 5G will bring big benefits for service providers. Joining this executive session is Christina Rodriguez, she's Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Access Network Division, that at Intel. We also have Neil McRae, he's Group Chief Architect at BT. Next, we have Kevin Shatzkamer, he's Digital Transformation Officer at Google Cloud. And last, we have Yann Bégassat, Business Development Director for 5G and Edge at Broadpeak. Welcome to the program.
Various Speakers:
Thank you.
Host:
Alright, to get us started off Kevin at Google Cloud if you don't mind, I'm going to go to you first, and anybody else who wants to respond, certainly do. Set the stage for us. for the demand for faster networks and easier access to data across enterprise organizations and why is there a focus necessarily on edge computing and improving radio access networks?
Kevin Shatzkamer:
Thanks, Abe. More, bigger, faster is no surprise in the cellular industry, it's what we've wrestled with for generation after generation after generation of cellular technology, and 5G is no different. I think if we've learned anything over the course of the last year living through a pandemic, living through multiple shutdowns, it's a couple of things. One is that short-form video is getting shorter, the number of clips that we watch in a given period of time, and the ability to optimize, because they are so short, becomes more challenging. Secondarily, we certainly see that the interactive needs of video for video conferencing and whatnot has grown exponentially as well as, we've continued to see the need to be able to have business continuity with people working from home and during the shutdowns. So, I think video has certainly been top of mind, we've been talking about edge computing for a very long period of time. I think now what we're witnessing is an entirely new set of capabilities for video to deliver business outcomes that require edge computing to be in play. So, it's no longer how do I watch videos that I can share with my family and friends, and how do I interact from a one on one or one-to-many basis over video conferencing? But it's how do I use video to enable business processes faster, whether it be leveraging AR, VR technologies, etc. Just about every industry we think about, whether it be retail, whether it be healthcare, whether it be hospitality, whether it be manufacturing facilities and repair of machinery, all of them are starting to look at the capabilities of video and real-time interaction as foundational to their next-generation set of business practices, and I think that just puts an additional strain on the network's overall.
Host:
Yann, anything to add?
Yann Bégassat:
Well, at Broadpeak we are developing software solutions for operators, basically to store and deliver video for their live TV, VOD, private video recording and catch up all the streaming services. The [unintelligible: 03:28] club is really a chance basically for this industry because essentially, it's bringing the content closer to the end-user. So, we'll come back to that. There's a number of benefits for regular video streaming but also, for all the new streaming formats which are coming
Cristina Rodriguez:
I'll add a little bit to that too and I'll give you a little bit of statistics on this. We're expecting, we're seeing data that is showing that by 2025 the amount of data that both humans and machines are going to generate is 10 times what we are generating today. If you look at video only, that grows 20 times, it will grow 20 times the demand that we have today. And Yann, also at Intel we're talking about that if you remember last week. So, in order to deal with all this amount of data, and to do intelligent real-time analysis of that data and applying it to 5G use case, where now because of review and all the different use cases and low latency or latency-sensitive use cases, in order to do that we need to have faster networks and we have to bring the compute closer to where the data is generated. That's why we are going in the middle of this transformation in the industry. Another data point, another statistic, we are that by 2025, 75% of the data that is generated and processed is happening outside the data center. So, that is telling you we need this transformation on the network, we need to build out the edge, and I would say we need to use technologies, such as [unintelligible: 05:15] and cloud-native network to deal with that vast amounts of data that bring flexibility, scalability, and agility.
Host:
Neil, I want to go to you and again, in a real sort of 30,000-foot level, how is the increased deployment of edge data centers fueled by Oran and private networks really impacting your general business strategy?
Neil McRae:
I think Oran less so because we were always moving to virtual vRan. But I think the other thing that's Top of Mind is the experience for users when they're using these services, be it video or anything else.
Neil McRae:
So, we actually have a stat inside BT, it's called time to Mandalorian, so how quickly can you get the Mandalorian running on your phone, and also, what insight can we pass back to the content providers on how they might speed up? Things like zoom, so we're all on the zoom bridge here; how do we give insight back to zoom so they can bring their applications to the edge and improve that experience? Because bandwidths are growing, we know it, we've seen it, we've got the T-shirt, it's going to continue to grow for sure, but how do we take those little niggles out of the whole experience so it's really seamless, and it's a really great experience. If you've got a three-year-old child and they want to watch the program on TV, you're trying to get it on there as quickly as possible, it's a really simple example of it but if you're speaking to your entire company, 1000 people, you want to make sure everyone's got a great experience. That's where private networks are starting to come in. And also, private networks... we're building private networks\ for some manufacturing companies that want to video the entire manufacturing process at high resolution so that they can say, this airline jet engine that we built, we can show the customer every bit of every component coming together. We can then take information from that jet engine and when it actually goes into flying and link it to the manufacturing, check that everything's working, and proactively improve upon the build, and the construction, and the longevity of these really expensive components.
Host:
Yann, I want to go to you next. Why is the emergence of the Telco edge cloud infrastructure, very interesting for video streaming services, and also content delivery networks? And, Kevin, if you could respond to that, and give us some of the challenges there as well?
Yann Bégassat:
So, actually, we see two very important trends at the moment which have started to happen I would say, over the past year. So, first off, streaming is overtaking broadcast building and it means one user, one session; can you imagine the change of paradigm? And the second point is that this is a TV set actually, this has become a TV set. So, you see the challenges looming on the horizon and of course, 5G will help with its additional spectrum, which is technical innovations. But we might still struggle in some areas during some times. So, when you watch VOD, like Netflix for instance, it works on mobile networks but watching a live program, for instance, a low latency sports program, over a similar network can be a hit and miss experience, especially at peaks, not forgetting the 30 to 45 seconds you have over the live streaming. So, this is where the Telco edge cloud would have big-time, actually. Of course, you do not require like 50 milliseconds, 100 milliseconds for regular streaming. But by bringing the content closer to the end-users, you do two things. You shorten the TCP connection, which is really key for video bitrate, and basically, you remove the risk of congestion on the longest segment of the network. And this changes everything for the mobile users, the viewers basically experience less of the buffering, they see the lag reduced to a couple of seconds and the video picture quality much higher. So, this is why Telco edge cloud matters, basically for video streaming.
Kevin Shatzkamer:
Yeah and I'll even build a little bit more on what Yann said. He raised the point that moving content to the edge builds a better experience and I think it's just generally that video as an expectation of predictability. That's predictability in terms of the link between the end-user and wherever the content is being served from, and the shorter you make that link, the better experience just, in general, you're going to see. So, when I think about edge computing, it's not so much about a physical location as much it is about shortening the distance and building more predictability into the end-to-end flow. I think that's going to be really important continuing going forward, to continue to find all of those levels of optimization. Even Neil mentioned some things that BT is doing in terms of sharing insight inside of the network with content providers and I think sometimes that gets lost. We think we can optimize just at the end device; we think we can optimize at the CDN and at the application layer but it really is an end-to-end system that needs to interoperate with each other in an effective way. And that's why it's so important to share those cues and share those insights from multiple different systems across the end-to-end value chain and flow.
Host:
Christina, I'll go to you, sort of trailing off of Yann and Kevin as well. So, defining 5G access networks is important for consumer demand, for really this higher quality interactive video, AR/VR gaming, requires higher bandwidth and lower latency as they mentioned. Can you cite another specific use case for CDN video where the ability to localize applications to reduce this latency is paramount?
Cristina Rodriguez:
CDN is transforming as more devices are connected, as more high-resolution applications come to play. CDN has to deal with that higher bandwidth, lower latency. and being able to sustain a high quality of end-user experience. Just like Kevin and Yann we're talking, I think it's all about predictability and being able to do that. Anything that is video streaming, live video streaming, live broadcasts, cloud gaming, user-generated content, UGC, anything that is interactive, that benefit from bringing to the edge, to bring it closer to the user where the data is generated. I'll give you another piece of statistic to think about or prediction to think about, by 2025 it's likely that we will have 1 billion online users simultaneously connected, doing video on demand, doing that cloud gaming, interacting with the application. So, if we assume 10 megabits per second for the user, we're talking about 10,000 peda bit per second of traffic. So, in order to deal with that, we need this build-out of the edge. Specific examples you were asking, I would say for example, in live streaming or personalized that live is streaming. let's say that the users are getting very sophisticated and demanding better experiences, they want to be their own digital director. So, let's say for example, that you're watching a movie or a show on TV or in your TV room and you want to walk out of that room to go check on something, you don't want to miss out on what's happening, you can transfer that content to your mobile and walk with it. That's one example. Or you're watching a movie and you want to slow-motion some part of that movie, you want to watch the movie scene from different angles, you want to interact with it, you want to decide what's going to happen next. All those are pretty cool fancy applications that are real but that requires bringing that to the edge. Another example that is fascinating is volumetric video, for example, for telepresence, holograms, 3d video, you can't send all that through backhaul traffic, you're going to have to process that at the edge. OR for example, any kind of life event in a stadium or venue where you can add all kinds of additional interactive experiences, we can watch the event from different angles. Again, multiple use cases, multiple applications where there is that benefit of bringing CDN [unintelligible: 14:26] and the processing of the data closer to the consumer.
Yann Bégassat:
Just to be just to pick up for one second on what Kevin and Christina said. I really support the fact that the mobile networks in the radio networks specifically, are really highly unpredictable so we really need to bring the CDN closer to the end-users to have them much more dynamic and also, to have more advanced... we think at Broadpeak that we need a new generation of [unintelligible 14:55] and one of the advanced features which is needed is kind of silly. Cellular control network, controlled streaming in emergency situations. We'll come back to that but I think sometimes the operator needs to get back control on the streaming.
Host:
Absolutely. Neil, I'm gonna go to you next. Can you explain open caching edge content delivery servers as in its 5G multi-access edge computing capability, and why is this significant for delivery at the edge over 5G networks?
Neil McRae:
I think it goes back to my earlier point Abe, more and more content providers don't just want their content delivered, they want to deliver with quality, and open caching has given us a standard, a way of across industry delivering content and also integrating into the mobile network, so we can optimize it, so we can deliver it to the device in the best format, that device can consume. Open caching really lets service providers take back control of that delivery. CDNs, we love them, they're great people, they do fantastic stuff but often... and Yann talked a little bit about; the unpredictability. We've seen some things be unpredictable that give a really poor experience, and frankly, for us, that isn't good enough. We have to be even when it's unpredictable, we want to give the best experience, we don't want it to be any different. Open caching is really allowing us to bring that back into our own control, position that with the network which for us actually, most of what happens on the network, probably 95% of what happens on the network is predictable and moving this with open cache to the edge, allows us to manage that last 5% of unpredictability, and gives us some flexibility and moving content as we see these kinds of... as the ops team column, these content storms where suddenly something happens in the world and all of a sudden, you have a huge amount of traffic. We had some of that in the UK, Prince Philip here in the UK passed away and that added 6 terabits per second of traffic within three seconds. You've got to be able to react to that and open caching allows us to do that and allows us to give that quality of service. We're partnering with Quill and Cisco on this and it's really delivering benefit for our customers. But actually also, importantly, the content owners that are using that platform also see the benefit and they're willing to pay us for it. We're going to invest 20 billion pounds over the next few years on infrastructure, anything we can do to make a return is hugely important.
Yann Bégassat:
I cannot support more work through what Neil is describing. Open caching is here basically to foster the collaboration and the business between the operators and the content providers. I don't think we are all surviving this open caching initiative, we did work first demo of open caching at [unintelligible: 18:19] recently, and really, everybody wins with open caching. Content providers have more options to deliver their content, operators have more control over their streaming, and they can also sometimes monetize their edge assets and the users, they get a better experience. So, really... everybody wins.
Host:
Christina, I'll go to you next, and Kevin, if you can respond as well. So, there are benefits to edge computing beyond reduced latency, how can these CSPs open their networks to these third-party applications in your opinion?
Cristina Rodriguez:
We talk about reducing latency, which of course is an obvious benefit. I would say beyond that, there is an opportunity here to create a platform, to create a network infrastructure that is software-defined, an opportunity to deploy a real cloud-native network with all the advantages, all the benefits that that brings flexibility, agility, observability, resilience, security. So, this is an important part of it and I think that's exactly why the industry is looking at how it can transform itself to bring all these aspects. By building the edge and bringing CDN closer to the users now operators can assign resources, can assign the compute, the storage, the bandwidth, needed to address that use case. It's an opportunity for, again, this business to business, business to consumer additional opportunities.
Neil McRae:
I just want to add something to Christina's point about latency. The whole of the UK fits in St. Texas, so the latency that you can reduce is tiny, and in Europe in particular, you've got language, the content is very tight to the language. If you're in Spain, again, it will fit roughly inside of Texas, you don't need a huge amount of latency reduction. And actually, one of the best ways to take latency is to get as many people on [unintelligible: 20:50] or fiber to the home and 5g standalone more than moving any [unintelligible: 20:56] capability. So, what Christina says really resonates with me and edge is so much more than latency. In fact, most of the things we're talking about, latency isn't the biggest driver for any kind of edge application.
Host:
Kevin, I wanted to go here really quick on something, maybe tangential to that. So, let's take a step back just for a moment. Why have IT workloads move to the cloud and why have certain IT workloads moved back on-premise as new cloud operating models for On-prem really become viable right now?
Kevin Shatzkamer:
I think workloads move to the cloud predominantly led by business owners within enterprise organizations at first, just almost developing a shadow IT organization because cloud could respond faster to needs than traditional IT could. What we saw over the last several years is that we've now taken a step back and overall enterprise IT strategy of moving to the cloud has been unified across all of the business owners within each of the companies that we work with. But I think what there's growing realization in is that there are a set of services and applications that are just better suited to closer proximity, lower latency as one of the characteristics, data sovereignty, various other reasons why localization of content has become important. I think when you look at this from an enterprise lens, though every application developer, every enterprise will tell you they want lower latency, every application developer and enterprise will tell you they want better predictability, enhanced performance, whatever it happens to be. The question is, what are the use cases that demand it, and what are the monetization and commercial structures that can be put around it? What are people actually willing to pay for? I think what we're seeing with edge computing generally, is that in some instances, they're paying for return to On-prem, meaning they want the cloud operating model, the simplicity of commercial structures around consumption, the simplified operating model of cloud On-prem. But more importantly, they want their choice of where that cloud lands, it's not just On-prem, it could be at the telecom edge, it could be at one of Google's edges, it could be within an ISP, it could be at big massively scaled centralized data centers. I think what's key to making this system work from an end to end perspective, is the right level of observability across all of those different clouds, consistency for application developers in terms of how they interact with all of those clouds, and intelligence, and eventually, machine learning and automation to be able to make sure that workloads land where they're most capable of being delivered at the experience that the end-user needs. Today, we're still somewhat fragmented in terms of how we offer that and I think we spent a lot of time with edge computing thinking about these single-user scenarios, single workload scenarios, single-use case single enterprise, and over time, that singularity will eventually lead to I think what Christina mentioned, this common horizontal platform that will become the enabler.
Host:
That's a great segue into the last question, and I'll go around the room on this one. I'll start with Yann, maybe talk about or if you want to identify what the future of video streaming may be, just from your own lands, your own perspective. Yann, I'll start with you. So, what new innovations are there for edge CDNs to make them more attractive to a video service provider?
Yann Bégassat:
I think I would mention three of them. First, I think we discussed that already, the most important is the dynamic instantiation of the cache servers or the cache instances into the network. And so, the mobile network, the mobile traffic, is more dynamic so the CDN has to be much more dynamic and flexible as well and the best way to do that is containers come in. We need to plug into the public and private containerized cloud architecture. The second one is orchestration, but the right orchestration. We need a video service-aware orchestration. Let me give you an example, you will not deliver from the same deep edge CDN location, low latency sports events, and VOD content, it doesn't make sense. So, orchestration, content-based, and business-oriented orchestration are very important. And the third one is, as I said before, we have also advanced features in the CDN, like this server control ADR in the CDN, and we have released our Espo streaming technology. Why? Because in some emergency situations, in some congestions, you need the ABS in your car, the network has to take back control of the streaming. Like in your car when you have the ABS which is triggered, the car takes control for a few seconds. So, here again, in the network, for the speeding, the operators need to get control. For instance, if you are in a network [unintelligible: 26:16] stream, you will probably serve higher video bitrate to a fixed wireless access user, which is consuming streaming over the big screen versus a smartphone user, which is [unintelligible: 26:26]. Or when you have a big, big sports event, you will probably decide to slightly decrease the video bitrate of everyone to make sure every mobile user is staying or accessing new services. So, containerization, right orchestration, and server control type of ABR are going to neither the best I would say, CDN plus edge required innovations
Host:
Thank you, Yann. Christina, the future of video streaming from your perspective?
Cristina Rodriguez:
The good news here is that... well, the solid good news is that the possibilities are incredible. And the good news, again, is that we have the tools to make that happen. We are investing in the industry, investing now on this platform, on these cloud-native networks with virtual cloud-native functions and virtual network functions that are running on general-purpose platforms. And by doing that, it's inheriting all the benefits of a cloud platform, all the Kubernetes Lifecycle Management, the observability, the resilience. So, we really have everything, we have the technology available and ready to make this happen and to prepare the network for the future.
Host:
I'll go with Kevin next and we'll finish with the operator. Kevin?
Kevin Shatzkamer:
I'll even build on Christina's comments as well. Certainly, there are innovations that continue to happen in medium CDN, but I think more important than anything, is the economics of the systems that surround it. There are certain things that we just don't solve by moving content to the edge, you don't solve in-building coverage, you don't solve wavelength propagation issues, you don't solve edge of cell performance issues, you don't solve backhaul issues. But I think what happens as we build out these cloud-native networks, the economics of operating these networks change and as a result of the change of operating economics, there's an opportunity to reinvest in coverage and capacity. The other major thing I would point out is that devices are indeed getting smarter and devise capabilities to intelligently select the networks that are going to be capable of delivering the best experience, I think is really important. Neil mentioned earlier, I think Yann mentioned as well, there's a distinct difference between a user being served over fiber to the home versus a user being served over LTE or even 5G. So, the more we can intelligently selected the device, what network do I connect to and have a seamless means to authenticate and authorize to that network so I can connect faster? I think that's going to be an important lever in being able to make the experience from a content perspective better.
Host:
And Neil?
Neil McRae:
I think we see the promise of this reduced cost, I don't think it's materialized and we've been talking about it. Our first NFV demo was at the 2012 Olympics here in London almost 10 years ago, and I'm not sure the benefits are translated yet. It takes time for the changes to come in but what's very clear from us as an operator is, you know, the ability to differentiate is reducing over time, so we've got to figure out how we don't become the electricity company where no one cares who your electricity company is, except when you have a power cut. So, we want to get into more and more services, being able to offer... one of the CDN-based services we're working on, I mentioned one of the previous sessions, being able to download x-rays off of moving ambulances and getting them into hospitals quicker. With our 5G network, we can do that, we can take flight or minutes of understanding the condition of a patient and really make a life or death. difference. ow, do we how do we create more and more services like that in Telco that we can charge for? Because at the moment, I'm giving more and more away and that isn't a sustainable model when you've got to go and invest. Over the next five years, we'll invest 20 billion in network expansion and it's hard to see where we get the return from that if the current mode of operation continues. More services on streaming services, I think there are lots to do there in 3d design online digital twin, I think there are huge benefits to towns, cities, even rural locations on how you map your city and how you get the most out of your city, and we've done a number of experience with that. You've got to have that local because you've got people looking real-time at one street in a village or one building in a city. So, I think there's a huge amount of stuff, and 10 years from now, I'd love to be looking back saying, you know, here's the killer apps that edge compute arrived. The first one streaming gaming, you don't have to have a crazy PC at home to play the latest games anymore, you can play them online. That's just changed the dynamic massively for online gaming, and I think that's one of many that are yet to come, and I'm really excited about what the future holds. But we in Telco, we've got to figure out a way making more money, otherwise, we're not going to invest.
Host:
Well, the purpose of the one-day event today is the applications around the Telco edge cloud, and certainly video streaming. It's one of those verticals that are very much impacted by that and sort of the innovations there. So, we appreciate everyone joining this session. Again, a good cross-section of the ecosystem. Everyone sort of represented. Yann with Broadpeak, we very much appreciate you joining us. This is your first time hopefully not your last. Christina, it is always good to have you with us.
Cristina Rodriguez:
Always good to be here Abe.
Host:
I appreciate it. Kevin Shatzkamer, of course... always very liberal with your time with us if I can put it that way, so we appreciate that. We know how busy you guys over at Google Cloud are, I'm hearing about it every day on my feeds that I get. Neil McRae, you're actually on two of our sessions today, this is one of them so we appreciate your time. Hopefully, we see all of you guys in person sometime soon. Not sure where that's going to be or when but we'll cross our fingers I guess. And for all our viewers out there again, we thank the speakers on the delivery at the edge over 5g networks. You can watch this session on-demand on April 26th by logging on to thenetworkmediagroup.com. So long