During a speech at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky announced the launch of AWS Private 5G. The new service will enable businesses to create their own mobile networks and provide their employees with 5G’s high bandwidth, low latency service.
Selipsky envisions the service being valuable for a variety of enterprises, including corporate and college campuses, oil rigs, and agricultural operations. AWS will send the equipment needed to set up and maintain the network, including small cell radio units, servers, software, and SIM cards, once users decide how much traffic they expect on the network.
There are other private mobile networks, but many of them charge per device, making them prohibitively expensive. “It’s all the goodness of local 5G technology without the high upfront costs,” said Selipsky.
The business claims that the setup will take days, rather than the weeks or months that such networks generally take to establish.
The technology has the potential to be transformative, particularly for businesses in wide areas of the United States where weak local infrastructure makes 5G and other high-speed broadband difficult to come by.
Selipsky also unveiled AWS Mainframe Modernization on Tuesday, a new service that would make transitioning from legacy mainframes to AWS easier. The solution will seamlessly re-program current systems without causing considerable interruption, making the transfer to the cloud easier for AWS customers—and new customers.
“There are minimal code changes,” said Selipsky. “We made sure you don’t lose any functionality.”
Nasdaq aims to move its North American markets to AWS in 2022, which implies trading will be done in the cloud, according to Selipsky. AWS IoT TwinMaker, a solution that makes digital twins of buildings, factories, and industrial equipment, was also revealed.
Digital twin technology, which has grown in popularity in recent years, is used to track and control elements of physical infrastructure such as energy use and cybersecurity.
