According to two giant US technology companies – data center operator Equinix and 5G provider Verizon – demand for edge computing seems to have stalled.

Both companies have argued that they're well positioned to provide speedy access to computing services via a geographically distributed network of data center locations. But both have also reported slower-than-expected demand for such edge services.

"Equinix is the leading edge provider for use cases today, as it can cover over 80% of the US population with 10 milliseconds of latency," noted the financial analysts at Wells Fargo in a report to investors, citing their recent conversation with Equinix's VP of business development Jim Poole.

However, the analysts argued that there's not much demand for anything faster. "There are no material use cases today that require <10 milliseconds, which haven't necessitated Equinix to go deeper into the 'metro edge' (i.e. secondary or tertiary markets)," the analysts explained. "In other words, the challenge on moving deeper into the edge is not a technology issue, but rather an ecosystem one in which developers have not been able to create economic models around new use cases that require those types of low latencies. But Equinix is clearly watching closely and could potentially make a move deeper into secondary/tertiary markets if the opportunity presented itself."

Figure 1: (Source: kubala/Alamy Stock Photo)

Equinix is one of the world's biggest data center operators with more than 200 sites around the world.

Resetting expectations

On edge computing, Verizon executives have made similar comments.

"On the MEC [multi-access edge compute], what we are finding is demand is taking a little longer to go," explained Verizon Business CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath during a recent investor event.

He added that Verizon now expects to generate MEC revenues starting sometime late next year and into 2024.

As noted by FierceTelecom, that timeline represents yet another delay for the operator. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said in 2020 that Verizon would generate meaningful revenues from MEC in 2022. Then, earlier this year, Verizon CFO Matt Ellis said the operator's public MEC business would generate "significant" revenues starting in 2023.

"So it's going to take a little longer," Sampath said.

Verizon, for its part, offers more than two dozen public edge computing locations scattered across the US via a deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Of course, the lack of widespread demand for edge computing hasn't stopped vendors from hyping the technology. For example, AWS touted its edge computing offerings during its recent re:Invent trade show, according to SDxCentral.

And Ericsson – one of the world's biggest suppliers of 5G radios – recently wrote that edge computing ought to be a core component of future mixed reality (XR) services. "Without having a sufficiently densified network in terms of RAN [radio access network] and multi-access edge computing (MEC) with an optimized network configuration, wide-area and mobility-supporting XR will be difficult to deliver," Ericsson's Du Ho Kang wrote on the company's website, in outlining the potential networking implications of metaverse-style services.

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— Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano