- The US online retailer Amazon is entering the European 5G network market through a cloud contract with the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica.
- Amazon is reportedly set to migrate one million 5G customers to Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud by the end of May through this agreement with Telefónica.
Amazon announced its entry into the European 5G network market through a cloud contract with Telefónica on May 7.
Entering the 5G market
The global communication cloud market is expected to grow from $19.7 billion in 2021 to $108.7 billion by 2030. This is anticipated to provide growth opportunities for companies like Amazon.
AWS(Amazon Web Services)’s Vice President, Hofmeyr, stated, “We want to make operating telco workloads a business in its own right.” adding, “We expect to sign more contracts with other telcos within the next 12 months.”
Also read: Amazon launches online shopping services in South Africa
Telefónica’s long-term target
O2 Telefónica, has become the world’s first company to transition the core network of existing mobile operators to the public cloud through this contract.
While there have been instances of transferring IT and other non-core operations to the public cloud in some communication networks, transitioning the core network to the cloud is considered highly rare.
Also read: Amazon AWS owes $525mln amid cloud-storage patent war
O2 Telefónica’s Chief Technology and Information Officer, Malik Rao, stated, “We want to confirm the operation of this solution for at least the first and second quarters and establish a roadmap to move more than 30-40% of our customer base to the cloud by 2025-2026.” O2 Telefónica has 45 million customers in Germany.