UK businesses will soon be cloud-ready thanks to British Telecom (BT)’s recent partnership with Amazon Web Services. The initiative will bring together the former’s 5G and 4G infrastructure and the latter’s cloud technologies to give both public sector clients and private companies faster and more secure high-bandwidth connectivity for a variety of purposes.
Part of BT’s drive to augment its current range of mobile networks, this initiative will enable 5G infrastructure as a service through AWS Wavelength. The range of solutions includes the activation of an AWS Wavelength Zone in Manchester that will provide trials for eligible firms and government agencies within a 100-kilometer radius. These will include companies in neighboring cities like Blackpool, Leeds, Liverpool, and Sheffield.
In doing so, BT opens up numerous opportunities for its clients through mobile edge computing infrastructure that will allow them to securely develop, deploy, and scale mobile Internet of Things (IoT) applications over an existing 5G network.
Prior to this agreement, BT’s Wholesale unit performed initial trials with AWS in Manchester. Should this initiative prove successful, BT hopes to roll out AWS Wavelength to corporate customers throughout the country within the foreseeable future.
According to Alex Tempest, managing director for BT Wholesale, launching AWS Wavelength and offering it as a service to both corporate and wholesale clients is a milestone towards building best-in-class 5G infrastructure for the country, essentially harnessing the cloud to the country’s best telco network.
Adding cloud-edge services into BT’s existing 5G and 4G networks will enable the telco to speed up cross-industrial innovation. It will also enable the company to give corporate and government clients the power of edge computing regardless of where they are in the country.
What is AWS Wavelength?
Wavelength is AWS’ 5G edge computing technology. It embeds AWS’s proprietary compute and storage services within existing 5G networks. Working with AWS Wavelength enables telecommunications companies to offer mobile edge computing infrastructure for developing, deploying, and scaling ultra-low-latency applications.
In the case of BT, this collaboration will allow it to offer its customers high-speed, latency-sensitive, and intensive 5G connectivity, specifically those who stand to benefit from case studies on high-bandwidth IoT. Technologies that may be deployed using such an augmented infrastructure include autonomous / self-driving vehicles; cameras for use in monitoring public services, protecting communities, and public healthcare; live broadcast media; and industrial robotics.
