Google Cloud’s telecom efforts may lack the pizzazz of larger hyperscale rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft, but it's a model that's not likely to change in the near term despite recently taking on new management.

Those efforts are now under the purview of Ankur Jain, who recently replaced Amol Phadke as head of Google Cloud’s telecom practice. Jain has been at the hyperscaler for 18 years, most recently serving as VP of Google Cloud.

Jain cited the cloud giant's ongoing work toward using its expertise to help operators better monetize their network investments. This builds on Google Cloud's broader hybrid-cloud infrastructure layer with more telecom-specific support from its Google Distributed Cloud Edge (GDC Edge) and the Linux Foundation-hosted Nephio Project.

GDC Edge has been the basis for much of Google’s work with telecom infrastructure providers to validate the ability for their equipment to run on the platform to support 5G deployments.

“We are working very closely with the network equipment providers to make sure that their workloads are validated on Google Distributed Cloud Edge and, in doing that cross-optimization, we add the features that are needed for them to run,” Jain said.

This work was highlighted by Ericsson recently expanding its radio access network (RAN) integration with Google Cloud. This extended Ericsson’s Cloud RAN system onto the GDC Edge platform.

Jain said these efforts are important for initial deployments, but also for operators to feel more confident that these constructs can handle carrier-grade needs.

“It's not just about making sure that those network functions run properly, but it's about how do you make sure that day-zero, day-one, day-two operations are well understood between us and the network function provider as we go into more scale,” Jain said. “It's not just about getting it up and running for one single day, but it's really the full lifecycle of both the workload as well as the underlying cloud infrastructure layer and how do those responsibilities pan out between us.”

That work is gaining traction with operators.

T-Mobile US earlier this year linked its 5G network and enterprise-focused 5G Advanced Network Solutions (ANS) platform to GDC Edge. This highlighted the growing integration between the telecom and cloud ecosystems and how cloud hyperscalers are further bolstering their platforms to support telecom-specific needs.

Dan Hays, partner at consulting firm PwC, noted in a recent interview with SDxCentral that this push is important to gain operational trust from legacy-minded operators.

“Everyone assumes, hey, I go to my hyperscaler and I buy storage and compute and whatever,” Hays said, but he noted that those services will be different from what the hyperscalers offer to more general enterprise customers.

Nephio Project gaining telecom steam

Jain said that Google Cloud’s telecom efforts are also adhering to its open-source focus. He repeatedly cited the Nephio Project as a key point to that work.

“We have seen either very complicated projects, which are very hard to wrap your hands around, or we have seen proprietary systems, which the entire ecosystem would not converge around,” Jain said. “We wanted to come up with something that is simple to implement but which is also open.”

That Kubernetes-based project was initiated by Google Cloud and donated into the Linux Foundation last year.

The project, which recently unveiled its first big release, is designed to provide Kubernetes-based cloud-native intent automation and automation templates to make it easier for telecom operators to deploy and manage multivendor cloud infrastructure and network functions across large-scale edge deployments. It sits on top of a Kubernetes substrate either directly controlled from an operator or a hyperscaler-based platform like Google Config Connector, AWS Controllers for Kubernetes or Azure Service Operator.

Google Cloud's iteration of the Nephio Project is its Telecom Network Automation platform launched earlier this year. It's designed to provide artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to help facilitate virtualized radio access network (vRAN) and open RAN deployments.

Vendors and operators have been responding.

Ericsson’s recent Google Cloud integration push included potential use of Nephio-based products.

“We are now looking at some of the tool sets,” Manish Singh, VP for strategic alliance and key account manager for Google at Ericsson, said of that work. “We need a product at the end of the day, so one is setting the standards, one is product. We are examining some of the tools that Google has provided to see how Nephio-compliant it is, whether it locks us in or whether it allows us that flexibility. So that’s still evolving.”

A handful of European-based telecom giants are also behind work by the Linux Foundation Europe’s Project Sylva that is geared toward constructing a production-grade telecommunications cloud stack focused on the need of European telecommunication operators. That project borrows from other Linux Foundation projects, including Nephio.

Google Cloud's private network approach remains as monetization facilitator

One area where Google Cloud appears happy to maintain its positioning is in being a facilitator in the private network space instead of taking the more proactive approach that some of its rivals have taken.

Jain noted that Google Cloud has for years been working to package its tools and services to help communication service providers (CSPs) monetize their own network infrastructure. These include networking and security products that run on top of Google Cloud.

“Of course, private networks is also one of those things that they can do,” Jain said. “There are definitely CSPs who are looking into that as well.”

Google Cloud last year updated its Distributed Cloud Edge service to allow vendor partners to provide enterprise-specific services running on top of the platform. Those services include the ability to tap into licensed spectrum assets either controlled by a carrier or available through outside licensing models; support for vRAN technology for connectivity and edge applications; and deployment and management of control and user plane functions.

Jain said Google Cloud is focused on continuing to use that package mentality to help operators in the private network space.

“When it comes to private networks, we are right now providing the building blocks for CSPs to package it into a solution and take it to the enterprise customers,” Jain said.