Why and how edge cloud computing can address performance and economic sustainability issues for telco domestic networks

Abstract

This paper analyzes some of the telecommunication companies' (telcos) domestic networks' main objectives and issues related to the application services Quality of Experience (QoE), i.e., "technical QoE," and the economic sustainability of the Very High Capacity (VHC) networks. Telco domestic networks and Over The Top (OTT) networks are the Internet segments connecting the end-user equipment to the servers/clouds that provide application services. With the advent of VHC networks, telcos afford difficulties in managing effectively and efficiently the application services and their business sustainability. This paper affords some issues related to traditional telcos' domestic network architectures and the approach to managing the application services' performance improvement. Some telcos started changing their architectures, although a massive transformation had not yet started in the industry. Traditionally, telcos focus on network services, i.e., the transport of IP packets. Performance improvement is obtained by QoS-based traffic management techniques, such as bandwidth reservation and packet prioritization. To manage application performance improvement, the use of layer 4 techniques and Edge Cloud Computing (ECC) is effective, as demonstrated by the multiyear experience of OTTs which already use these technologies. In telco domestic networks, layer 2 tunnels increase the complexity of deploying ECC. However, some vendors provide non-standard solutions to make the IP layer 3 user plane visible and to deploy ECC. ECC is the key factor for the transformation. It is a mini/micro-data center that distributes some applications and content closer to the end users. The distribution can provide a paradigm shift in a telco's business. In the paper, we first highlight the need for regulators to appreciate the need to encourage this industry transformation fully.