How Much Revenue Upside for Telcos From Edge Computing?

Connectivity service providers are quite hopeful about possible roles in edge computing. Analysts tend to concur. 

Analysys Mason there is a $17 billion market opportunity for service providers between 2020 and 2025, if operators are able to insert themselves into some of three roles: suppliers of edge real estate, access or enabling applications at the edge. 

About 59 percent of that opportunity is in user-facing application and service platforms, which means operators need to offer services closer to the end user to gain a greater revenue share, Analysys Mason says. Some of us would argue that is an unlikely avenue for success. 

Connectivity providers--as befits their role in the ecosystem--are good at connectivity, not end user line of business or other apps. That’s not a slam; simply a recognition that telco skills and capabilities are aligned with their core business model. 

Research by Analysys Mason suggests the difficulty. As you would expect, only about six percent of respondents polled by the firm suggested they would select a telecom service provider to support their edge computing deployment. 

Fully 41 percent said they would prefer a technology company to manage their edge cloud implementation and another 31 percent said they would trust a public cloud provider most of all. 

That should be expected. Edge computing still is computing. The trusted suppliers still are likely to be the suppliers trusted with either cloud computing or premises computing. 

The upshot is that edge computing is likely to generate less connectivity provider revenue than many expect.