Comcast's 5G core is on its way to AWS

It has agreed a deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to migrate its 5G core network from on-premise hardware to the hyperscaler's public cloud.

Once up and running, Comcast will use it to provide mobile services via its own spectrum – which is in the 600 MHz and 3.5 GHz CBRS band and covers around 80% of homes passed by its fixed network, and around 50% of the US population.

As well as AWS's sizeable footprint, Comcast also touted various capabilities that public cloud will bring to its mobile network, including analytics, continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), on-demand scalability, and automation.

"AWS's extensive cloud infrastructure, together with their understanding of telco network requirements and ability to support production-grade 5G networks, will help us to continue delivering the highest quality service to our wireless customers," said Tom Nagel, Comcast's EVP of wireless strategy.

Speaking of wireless strategy, Comcast is focused on deploying its spectrum in high-traffic areas within markets it already it serves. As it stands, it has no plans to go nationwide and there is no indication that this deal with AWS will change that – this is more about how it serves customers, not how many.

"Moving Comcast's 5G core to the cloud will enable greater resiliency, faster innovation, and enhanced security, leveraging AWS's secure global cloud infrastructure," said Jan Hofmeyr, vice president of Amazon elastic compute cloud (Amazon EC2) edge at AWS. "We're excited to work with Comcast to power this state-of-the-art 5G network that will give their customers a better wireless experience, as well as meet the needs of future applications running in this new environment."

This agreement shouldn't come as a huge surprise, given Comcast's much-vaunted virtualisation strategy.

In September it announced project 'Janus', which will see Comcast migrate the management and control of its fixed-line core routing, switching and transport network functions from proprietary hardware to virtualised, cloud-based edge platforms that run on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware.

In 2019, Comcast also embarked on the virtualisation of its cable access network with the rollout of remote PHY nodes. It followed this up in 2021 with the deployment of virtualised cable modem termination systems (vCMTS).

For AWS meanwhile, landing Comcast as a customer is another milestone on its steady but slow journey into public telco cloud. It's a journey that started with a jolt, when it was selected by Dish to host its nationwide 5G network.

However, the excitement has fizzled somewhat since then. Telcos are keen to adopt cloud-native network architecture, but most seem to prefer hosting it in a private cloud environment.

According to a report earlier this year by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which cited data from sister company Omdia, telcos have been making progress when it comes to migrating back office and various non-network-related workloads to the public cloud. However, the same cannot be said for network functions, which is most of what a telco does. As a result, 97% of total telco workloads are still hosted on-premises.

Dell'oro predicted back in August last year that hyperscale cloud providers will account for around 9 percent of 5G standalone (SA) workloads by 2027.

Not bad, but hardly revolutionary.