CIO OPINION
The telco industry is on the cusp of a transformative era .
Nathan Blom , Chief Commercial Officer , Iceotope
Building the telco edge
Nathan Blom , Chief Commercial Officer , Iceotope , tells us how telco operators are addressing the challenges of power constraints , increased density and rising costs at the extreme edge with Precision Liquid Cooling .
With the growing migration of data to the Edge , telco providers are facing new challenges in the race to Net Zero . Applications like IoT and 5G require ultra-low latency and high scalability to process large volumes of data close to where the data is generated , often in remote locations .
Mitigating power constraints , simplifying serviceability and significantly driving down maintenance costs are rapidly becoming top priorities . Operators are tasked with navigating these changes in a sustainable and cost-effective manner while working towards their netzero objectives . Liquid cooling is one solution able to help them do just that .
Challenges facing telco operators
The major challenges confronting telco operators can be distilled into three fundamental aspects : power constraints , increased density and rising costs . The limitations of available power in the grid pose a significant challenge . Both urban areas and the extreme edge have concerns about diverting power from other essential activities . As telcos demand more data processing , increased computational power and GPUs , power consumption becomes a critical bottleneck . This constraint pushes operators to find innovative solutions to reduce power consumption .
Telco operators also face the dual challenge of increasing the number of towers while also enhancing the capacity of each tower . This requirement to boost compute power at each node and increase the number of nodes strains both power budgets and computational capabilities . The pursuit of maximising the value of each location becomes critical . Finally , the combination of increased density , heightened service costs per site , and a surge in operational
42 INTELLIGENTCIO EUROPE www . intelligentcio . com