Telco cloud modernization has become an urgent operational imperative for operators burdened by decades of siloed infrastructure and the demands of 5G, 6G and edge AI. A unified platform approach is now essential to deliver consistent lifecycle management, security and speed to production.

The pressure to consolidate disparate network domains onto a single, consistently managed platform has moved from a long-term roadmap item to a strategic necessity — especially as regulations and AI economics tighten. That convergence is reshaping what telcos demand from their infrastructure partners, according to Fran Heeran (pictured), vice president and head of global telecommunications business at Red Hat Inc.

“In telco, for the longest time, we’ve been building siloed applications and siloed solutions,” Heeran said. “You end up with multiple technology stacks that, over time, will become more out of date. One of the critical demands right now is on the area of lifecycle management — how do I manage the lifecycle of all the applications? How do I make sure security patching is up to date in a consistent way across all parts of my network and across all applications?”

Heeran spoke with theCUBE’s Rob Strechay and Rebecca Knight at Red Hat Summit 2026, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed telco cloud modernization, AI deployment at the network edge and how digital sovereignty is becoming both a compliance requirement and a new monetization opportunity. (* Disclosure below.)

Telco cloud modernization through a common platform

Red Hat is positioning OpenShift Virtualization — a unified VM and container platform — as the connective tissue that bridges the gap between cloud-native core networks and the legacy virtualized IT environments that telcos still rely on. The horizontal telco cloud approach is already producing measurable results for early movers. One New Zealand Group Ltd. was among the first operators to focus on a common infrastructure strategy spanning both core and IT, and its results have become a reference case for the industry. Deploying new workloads is now almost 50% faster than in its siloed environment, Heeran noted — a gain driven by unified management, consistent versioning and a single set of deployment guidelines for vendors.

“OpenShift Virt is critical there because you can manage both your VMs and your containers from your core, your IT, out even to your radio with a single platform from a single place,” Heeran said. “That’s kind of what we’re seeing all of our customers coming to us for — that consistency, helping solve that management problem as the networks become more diverse.”

Digital sovereignty is adding a new dimension to the modernization calculus. In Europe especially, operators such as Telenet Group N.V. in Belgium and Telenor ASA in Norway are deploying country-specific sovereign cloud solutions that go beyond data residency to include operational sovereignty — where the cloud is both hosted and supported from inside the sovereign border, Heeran noted. That expertise is converting a compliance obligation into a differentiated service offering for telcos.

“Telcos are very, very well positioned to offer those [sovereign solutions] because of their years of experience in building in-country sovereign infrastructure,” he said. “It’s not just something they have to do regulatory-wise — now it’s also a new business opportunity for them as well.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Red Hat Summit 2026 event:

(* Disclosure: Red Hat sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Red Hat nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE