In this vignette of The 5G Factor, Ron Westfall and Todd R. Weiss provide their perspectives on how Verizon is adding new Onsite mobile Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) units to its fleet to supplement its Cell on Wheels (COWs) and Cell on Light Trucks (COLTS) equipment that provide temporary network connectivity at venues or during emergencies and natural disasters.
The discussion focused on:
Verizon Adds Mobile Network-as-a-Service Units. Verizon is bolstering its services to help boost network capacity when needed using its new onsite, mobile Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) units. A mobile NaaS units is essentially an entire data center on a small trailer, functioning as a compact, portable, edge-based network that Verizon can set up as-a-service to provide 5G, edge compute, security, and connectivity to locations when expanded or emergency services are required. We assess the impact of these Verizon mobile NaaS services and capabilities including support for private network, private MEC, SD-WAN, and satellite connectivity and look at their use as mobile Labs as-a-service to test enterprise applications and devices on 5G standalone networks.
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Transcript:
Ron Westfall: Specifically, I have Verizon who you mentioned as a good example. As they’re in the process of adding a new vehicle to its fleet called Mobile Onsite Network-as-a-Service Unit, NaaS. Reminds me of the ’60s psychedelic band with Todd Rundgren, and specifically, it’s also known as cell on wheels or COWs and cell on light trucks or COLTs. So these are handy acronyms to help people remember what is the technology involved here. It’s using radio access tech to provide temporary network connectivity at venues or during natural disasters. Public safety is always a top priority.
So the mobile onsite NaaS is basically a small data center on a small trailer. So this is something that I think is very important, or I should say really, a complete data center on a small trailer. I think that’s a more APTT description. So fundamentally, it’s just that it’s a small portable edge-based network that Verizon’s using as a service to provide, again, what you’re talking about, a combination of capabilities, 5G edge compute, security, and of course all important connectivity to these remote locations that quite simply warrant these services. So Todd, what are your expectations for what Verizon’s doing here? What about COWs, COLTs? What is going on in terms of what’s standing out here?
Todd R. Weiss: Well, I think the COWs and COLTs have been around for a while. Those have been around for, I don’t know, maybe five to 10 years I think. They’re the things that when you go to a big football game or a World Series game or a Super Bowl game and there’s 100,000 people and all those local telecom communications networks are overloaded, this is where they bring these in to try to bolster it to add more capacity, and they’re brilliant. They’re also great because they can be brought in when there’s a natural disaster, when there’s hurricanes in Florida and massive damage and all the lines are down or when there’s tornadoes in the planes and all over the place, these things are great. What the new NaaS is going to do is provide even more capabilities because this isn’t just cells on wheels, this is networks on wheels.
This is network services that they’re going to be able to expand and connect to those cells on wheels and those cells on light trucks, the COWs and COLTs. This is going to broaden this whole entire thing and give it even more capabilities. Verizon’s, they just deployed their first deployment of this thing, a portable 10-foot trailer at their customer’s facility. Lockheed-Martin in Waterton, Colorado, they just put this mobile onsite NaaS to be able to have a private network, private MEC, SD WAN and satellite connectivity to the customer locations. That’s huge. Instead of having to sit there and build it for months or years or however long, months, weeks, they can just bring it in. They roll it in, it can be used as a mobile lab as a service to test enterprise applications and devices on a 5G standalone network.
If you want to see what the capacity is or see if you can do something, roll this in, have a bunch of them, have them in different parts of the country, put them in before you build it, make sure it works or make sure it fits the needs. This is a great, almost a laboratory on wheels for them. I think this is great. This mobile onsite NaaS, it can communicate to the cloud for remote management and monitoring, but the applications all live locally at the edge-based system. That to me, is really a big deal because now they can bring in all this extra connectivity. They can bring in all this extra monitoring and management, and then all those applications are already there. You’re now supplementing them. You’re supplementing what you already have. Maybe you weren’t able to do something, bringing in something like this can show you. “Wow, now we can do that.”
I think these are huge, I really do. And I wanted to say one other thing. While the mobile onsite NaaS is using a satellite connection at Lockheed Martin, it also could use a wireless or a wired connection as well. So again, it’s incredibly flexible. Whatever you need, wherever you need it, what do you have? Do you have access to satellite? Do you have access to whatever? Use what you have. And for this deployment, the mobile onsite NaaS is going to be collecting sensor data and video and assist in analysis of network operations. I just think this is huge. This is a great thing. Again, they’ve got this at Verizon. The others, if this works, are going to follow this. This is the kind of innovation Verizon’s doing with this particular thing. This could be used for any number of use cases. It could be surveying, it could be farming, bridge inspections, mine inspections., it could be anything.
Ron Westfall: Yes, I agree wholeheartedly, Todd. In fact, I think it does have global implications, to your point, about natural disasters, public safety. What comes to mind are the tragedies such as the earthquake that struck in Morocco and the floods that hit Libya, and clearly COWs technology would be most applicable to those situations because we don’t know when it can hit. You have to have that mobility built in, that flexibility, that being able to fundamentally deliver a complete data center to that site really on an ad hoc basis, but on an emergency basis. So this is important.
Todd R. Weiss: I never thought I was going to say this in this recording, but today, four years and four days from 9/11, have these things been available, had these capabilities been available, do you remember the horrific telecom communications that happened in New York City that day? Because so many of the antennas and things were on top of the World Trade Center and they were destroyed. So people couldn’t communicate. They were texting because that worked. This is exactly the kind of thing for a disaster, a natural disaster. I hate to bring up terrorist attacks, but this is a way of communicating, bolstering communications when communications are impaired in a big way. So I think this is for all kinds of uses, just giant. These telecom companies, Verizon, DT, others, they’re doing amazing things to give us capabilities that are so important. I really think this is a big deal.
Ron Westfall: So, right. Yes. I think we have some lessons learned, and now we’ve taken steps to make the public safety aspect paramount so that it’s less vulnerable to these types of disasters. On that important note, thank you so much, Todd, for joining our… today. To the viewing audience out there. We certainly appreciate you taking the time to listen to our views on what’s going on in the 5G world. Again, don’t forget to subscribe to The 5G Factor. With that, everyone has a great 5G day. Thank you.
Todd R. Weiss: Thanks again for having me, Ron. Thank you.
Ron Westfall: You bet.
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Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
