TECHNOLOGY
NTT : THE EXCEPTION THAT PROVES THE RULE
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Not all telecom companies have been driven out of the data centre market over the last few years . Japanese telecom NTT still operates a thriving data centre subsidiary , which has absorbed RagingWire in the US , NetMagic in Asia , e-shelter and Gyron in Europe , and is in the process of forming them into a single coherent unit . RagingWire CEO Doug Adams contrasts NTT ’ s approach with that of US telcos like Verizon and AT & T : “[ The US telcos ] were very short-sighted , very quarterly focused ,” he said in an interview with Data Center Dynamics back in 2019 . “ They were getting their tushes handed to them by the Equinixes , Digital Realtys and RagingWires of the world , and they backed out . I think NTT was extraordinarily intelligent for doubling down on this business .”
under them . This isn ’ t a bad thing , necessarily , as managed services and colocation can offer more flexible and often cheaper alternatives to owning and operating infrastructure . One area where data centres and telcos might have a future involves the ongoing trend of shifting network operations towards the edge . Increasingly , micro data centres are popping up around the world , providing distributed coverage and enabling AI-powered edge computing solutions . Henrik Bäckström , Product Marketing
Manager , Digital Services at Swedish IT and telecom giant Ericsson believes that mobile and fixed networks are a natural fit for distributed micro data centre networks . “ Mobile and fixed networks are by nature distributed with small and large sites where various equipment is placed to provide connectivity across cities , suburban and rural areas . Normally we find large sites where a lot of people live and where many enterprises operate . The more the remote site — the smaller from a
SEPTEMBER 2020