German telecommunications firm Deutsche Telekom AG announced today that it has achieved another key milestone in its ongoing partnership with Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and Google Cloud.

Working with its partners, it managed to implement cloud-native network functions from Ericsson 5G Core on an on-premises variant of Google Distributed Cloud Edge in record-breaking time. At a Deutsche Telekom laboratory in Austria, the three firms successfully set up and completed a voice-over-Internet Protocol call using 5G Core Standalone on GDC Edge infrastructure in a matter of minutes.

It’s said to be a key goal for the companies, which have been working together since July 2022 to bring cloud infrastructure closer to mobile devices at the network edge. They’re aiming to develop a highly scalable, performant and stable cloud-native telecommunications network that also meets the data protection and security requirements of the European Union. Deutsch Telekom’s idea is that it can use GDC Edge to bring cloud services closer to where data is generated and processed.

Deutsche Telekom said in a news release that the results of its test are a clear demonstration of the advantages its new telecoms network will bring in terms of speed, scalability, flexibility and reliability. As part of the test, the partners evaluated the advantage of GDC Edge in maintaining and operating cloud-based telecom platforms. They also verified Ericsson’s cloud-native network functions and its ability to validate GDC edge to deliver a dual-mode 5G core network.

Normally, infrastructure and network deployments at the edge can take many weeks to set up using traditional cloud platforms. In contrast, Deutsche Telekom said it was able to deploy both the cloud infrastructure and 5G core applications in just a few hours with Google’s and Ericsson’s technologies.

Armin Sumesgutner, senior vice president of technology delivery and chief technology officer at Deutsche Telekom, said the company is aiming to build a “Telco-as-a-Platform” service as the basis for more configurable cloud services delivery. “Together with Google Cloud and Ericsson, we are working on an industry solution for scalable network operations,” he explained. “We will now continue our journey to demonstrate the benefits in terms of resilience and flexibility required for faster innovation and new services, as well as an even better customer experience.”

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said Deutsche Telekom’s progress is encouraging, since the cloud needs to expand to the edge to cater to next-generation applications that require closer proximity to users to deliver their true value. “Deutsche Telekom’s and Google Cloud’s 5G buildout is a prominent use case for the edge, and that is what they are targeting, working with Ericsson as their 5G partner,” he said.

Deutsche Telekom said the next steps for the three partners involve demonstrating how they’ll be able to maintain the highest level of data protection and security standards for customers, which is a key requirement if they’re to satisfy EU regulatory rules. Amol Phadke, general manager of global telecom industry at Google Cloud, said cloud-native networks will enable telecoms firms to dramatically improve the performance and agility of their networking services.

Image: Deutsche Telekom