Verizon Business is witnessing strong demand for both private 5G wireless and mobile edge computing (MEC) services that are linked in their deployment cycle, but the former is set to hit its bottom line ahead of the latter.

Segment CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath laid out that timeline during the recent NSR & BCG Innovation Conference, where he stated that Verizon Business had dozens of current private networks already deployed, with accelerating momentum.

“On the private networks, we are very bullish on that opportunity and I think things have gotten a little faster in the last 90 days than they've gotten in the last year or so,” Sampath said.

He added that these include deployments using licensed or unlicensed spectrum, though the carrier thinks “licensed is better, but we’ll do what the customer wants.” This sentiment has been echoed by Sampath’s compatriots at the country’s other large mobile operators.

“There’s a lot of value in private networks, but I think people are much better off having some level of relationship with a carrier that has licensed spectrum,” Gordon Mansfield, VP of mobility and access architecture at AT&T, told SDxCentral in an interview earlier this year.

Sampath said most of Verizon’s initial private network deals have resulted in incremental spending by customers.

“For example, if we are providing wireline network services – I'll call it more broadly network services – to 10,000 stores and if the realtor wants 100 sites or 200 sites of private network, they're going to come to us because we are already integrated into their service stack, we are integrated into their day-two operating model, we are integrated into their operating system, so when a ticket happens they know what to do and vice versa,” Sampath said. “It's a very logical extension to our business when you're managing large portions of the infrastructure to manage their private network piece to it.”

Sampath also noted that this integration makes it easier for an enterprises’ employee or mobile device base to seamlessly roam from that private network when on premises to Verizon’s public network when they move outside of that private network. Something that could be more of a challenge if that customer is relying exclusively on unlicensed Wi-Fi or the quasi-licensed Citizen Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum.

“This incumbent position both on the enterprise mobility piece and on our wireline services, where we do these large outsourcing deals, is exactly what we need to get in,” Sampath said. “It's very difficult for someone new to come in because of the legacy as well as just the deep integration we have.”

Jennifer Fritzsche, managing Director at Greenhill & Company, noted in a recent blog post that Verizon is set to take advantage of this licensed spectrum opportunity.

“Data shows that one of the biggest challenges in CBRS and private network deployments for the customers themselves is the complexity involved,” Fritzsche wrote. “There needs to be a ‘KISS’ (keep it simple stupid) approach to private network deployment if it is able to live up to these wildly optimistic growth outlooks. If Verizon could possibly master a role as an ‘integrator’ for these services and help enterprises work through this complexity, there is indeed real value in that.”

Those agreements are also serving as a gateway to MEC.

“Once you take a facility and put a private network on it the next logical step is, ok, let’s put a mobile edge compute there linked to any of the three cloud providers,” Sampath said.

While that sounds simple, the executive did note that the next logical step is taking time.

“On the MEC, what we are finding is demand is taking a little longer to go,” Sampath said. “And part of that is we are having to work back and integrate deeper into their operating system. So it's going to be much stickier when it does happen [but] it's going to take a little longer. We’ve got loads of proof of concepts and early commercial deployments, but we shouldn't see revenue till the back half of next year and into 2024.”

Verizon’s MEC efforts are to different degrees tied across all three major hyperscalers. It runs its public MEC services on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and its private MEC on Microsoft Azure and GCP.

Sampa explained that its public MEC work with AWS runs through that hyperscaler’s Wavelength platform in 17 markets across the U.S. using a “revenue share arrangement.” Its private MEC service are typically run on a “case-by-case basis.”

“It's a very good relationship,” Sampa said of these arrangements. “It's one we think is very symbiotic. We both have a lot to bring to the table and we're making a market from zero here. So there's something fun and magical that I personally enjoy a lot.”