Verizon’s US$3.6 billion purchase of Advanced Wireless Spectrum (AWS) from SpectrumCo, LLC, a joint venture between Comcast Corporation, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks showcases the importance of mobility and the cloud in Verizon’s next generation IT strategy.
Coming on the heels of its earlier acquisition of Terremark, which gives it a cloud hosting service, and Cloud Switch, which seamlessly migrates applications from a virtual to a cloud platform, the AWS spectrum purchase clearly demonstrates that Verizon views cloud and cloud mobility as growing areas of business, and that it understands the increasing demand on its mobility infrastructure — mostly due to cloud based applications — and the need to boost its 4G LTE roll-out.
And by acquiring the spectrum rather than the company, Verizon played it safe in eyes of regulators, as compared to AT&T’s proposed purchase of T-Mobile.
While employees and enterprises are becoming mobile, the last leg of mobility is still being managed by end users through hot spots or 3G networks, as there aren’t many managed mobility service offerings for the enterprise. Verizon would like to offer these enterprise mobility services, as proven by its joint venture with SAP to provide a Managed Mobility Portfolio. This will offer clients access to on-premises cloud-based SAP applications from anywhere, at any time, on Verizon’s cloud network.
As we discussed in our previous blog, “The Best of IaaS is still in the Making,” we will see telecommunications providers playing an increasingly larger role in the cloud mobility space.