Comcast is making an intriguing move toward the edge computing market, taking advantage of its own physical assets and partnering with long-time virtualized edge computing pioneer Vapor IO.

The move calls for Comcast to host Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge data center platform to support third-party edge service providers. Matt Trifiro, chief marketing officer at Vapor IO, explained this “hosting” involves a physical fiber connection between its Kinectic Grid and Comcast’s physical infrastructure. This connection will allow the combined product to support “near-premises” edge computing applications with lower latency at lower costs.

The trial is scheduled to officially kick off this quarter in Chicago and Atlanta.

Comcast Chief Network Officer Elad Nafshi said this “early move” is tied to the cable giant looking “at value creation is in the edge compute business.” He explained the trial builds off of Comcast’s current virtualized cable modem technology system (vCMTS) that underpins its current gigabit internet service.

“It really gives us a lot of opportunity to monetize where our strengths are,” which Nafshi said includes location, network and connectivity to deliver compelling services to customers.

“We want to make sure that we are in the forefront of the edge compute promise in that we're able to test the full optionality that it affords us and maximizing both the benefits to Comcast and the benefit for our customers,” Nafshi said.

The trial also propels Comcast to the forefront of the nascent edge and multi-access edge computing (MEC) markets. Dell’Oro Group recently reduced its forecast growth for the MEC market, noting “commercially viable enterprise applications are taking much longer to realize than earlier hoped.”

“You’ve certainly seen other approaches from some of the wireless carriers and what they're doing with that,” Nafshi said. “I think that we have a pretty unique opportunity to really take this to market, see what works, see what doesn't work, see what makes sense, see what doesn't make sense and examine that and the completeness of portfolio, from a technology but also from a scalability standpoint, and take it from there.”

Nafshi highlighted the importance of the latest trial by pointing to the markets in which it’s beginning its work with Vapor IO.

“Atlanta and Chicago are some of the largest markets we have and are very important markets for us,” he said. “We feel having access to those markets is a large enough base to start to run with the testing and get meaningful results. We’re not going into what I would call second-tier markets, tbese are tier-one markets, critical markets from a Comcast standpoint.”

The markets also overlap Comcast’s established cable and physical infrastructure footprint and that of Vapor IO’s expanding Kinetic platform deployments.

That work dates back to late 2017, when the vendor unveiled a software-defined version of its edge data center efforts. It was started as a technical architecture for creating virtual data centers.

The vendor then began building an ecosystem of edge data center providers like Packet, Digital Reality and Crown Castle to help expand the reach of its initiatives. The speed of those plans has wavered, with initial plans to have up to 100 locations live by the end of 2020.

Vapor IO last year made a big push in launching its Kinetic Grid platform in a half-dozen markets, with more than two dozen others working their way toward commercial readiness. Two of those initial live markets included Chicago and Atlanta.

Vapor IO CEO Cole Crawford explained that his company’s platform combined with the Comcast physical assets triggers two “killer apps” for the edge: economics and an easy button.

“One of the things that Vapor’s been maniacally focused on for years is taking the complexities away of having to do this on-prem,” Crawford said. “At the end of the day that shouldn’t be a bigger financial burden and certainly it’s a bigger operational burden that could be better served with shared-unit economics. It just feels like the right thing to do. And I think today we've leveled up the conversation.”