The partnership announced on June 29 between Google Cloud, Ericsson AB and Telecom Italia SpA, to deliver 5G and edge cloud solutions represents an early salvo in what is expected to be a fierce battle for control of the edge.

The goal is to make edge computing devices more useful but also create on opportunity for communications service providers, or CSPs, to generate new revenue streams from a significant investment in 5G wireless technology.

“How can CSPs monetize 5G and edge, which is a real thing at the moment, using Google Cloud’s solutions like the edge computing platform and Anthos and Ericsson’s cutting-edge 5G components?” asked Amol Phadke (pictured), managing director of Google Cloud. “If we can onboard these together at the CSP level, such as with Telecom Italia, that creates massive time to market efficiency. We’re going to create a cloud native application suite for 5G over time.”

Phadke spoke with John Furrier and Dave Vellante, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the recent Mobile World Congress event. They also spoke with Danielle Royston, founder and chief executive officer of TelcoDR Inc., in a separate interview, and they discussed Google’s latest news surrounding 5G, the cloud vendor’s interest in open mobile networks, and Royston’s keynote delivered at MWC. (* Disclosure below.)

Carrier-driven workloads

Google and Ericsson indicated that the firms are piloting enterprise applications at the edge using a Telecom Italia-enabled live network. The pilot will allow the partners to assess potential use cases in industries such as manufacturing and transportation.

“Creating that ecosystem of an Ericsson and Google Cloud with a Telecom Italia type carrier gives you that edge placement of workloads that would fit right next to a factory floor in a manufacturing example,” Phadke noted. “It unlocks a bunch of use cases for verticals such as retail, manufacturing and healthcare, which are already starting to launch together with Ericsson.”

Google also announced last month that it would join the O-RAN Alliance, a worldwide community operating in the Radio Access Network industry. The group’s mission is to reshape the RAN ecosystem toward more fully interoperable mobile networks, a movement known as Open RAN.

“Open RAN is something we have taken a great interest in over the last year or so as it started evolving,” Phadke said. “Think of tens of thousands of microcells and radio cells going everywhere and having standardized hardware and software with open interfaces as an extremely important cost dimension tool. The reason we got excited about Open RAN was you can now run a lot of APIs on the radio layer itself, and that suddenly brings a whole developer community.”

The announcements from Google Cloud were part of a steady stream of news flowing from this year’s gathering in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress. The latest announcements provided further evidence for Royston that her keynote remarks, delivered earlier in the day, correctly captured the major challenges confronting the telecom industry.

“There’s two big technological changes that are happening in our industry simultaneously,” Royston said. “I wanted to make it about public cloud, and I feel I’ve been successful at doing that, and the other piece is Open RAN. These two big shifts are happening.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Mobile World Congress event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Mobile World Congress. Neither TelcoDR Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE