By: Jesse Cryderman

The word edge means different things to different people. Time is also a factor. In the Middle Ages, for instance, an edge was originally understood to be a point or a sword before its definition grew to include “margin,” or “boundary.” Many centuries later, dreamers and entrepreneurs are obsessed with the cutting edge, which has nothing to do with the number of blades Gillette is cramming onto its latest razor, while business executives and athletes are constantly looking for an edge, i.e., an advantage over an opponent. And when music fans speak of the Edge with a capital E, they’re referring to the popular stage name of U2 guitarist Dave Evans.

Words can undergo a perpetual evolution, sometimes changing meaning entirely in the span of just two decades. As any student of English can attest, the grand tome of etymology is The Oxford English Dictionary, or OED, a 20-volume, 22,000-page catalog of the history of every word ever printed in this language. Inside its pages we learn that edge was first spelled ecg in Old English, that using the word to convey an advantage is a relatively recent development, and that the figurative use of “the cutting edge” didn’t appear in print until 1962.

When we talk about “the edge” in telecommunications, however, we’re talking about the network edge, or the terminal node in a modern distributed network that’s furthest from the core and closest to the end-user device. It’s the latest innovation in the meaning of the word, but it also happens to be where the most innovation is occurring in today’s communications networks.

The emerging trend in networking is to push intelligence—or “compute,” as data center engineers tend to call it—and regularly accessed content to the network edge, whether through base stations, small cells that can rapidly dispatch applications and processing power to end-user devices without tapping core network resources, content delivery networks that minimize the impact of mobile video, or clouds on the edge, thereby changing the very nature of communications networks.

The bleeding edge of innovation is the edge.

Supporting the everything-always-anywhere customer

Twenty years ago a reliable phone and a fair price for voice service were about the only things customers wanted from their communications service provider. But today customers desire every type of media from their CSP and expect it to be furnished at any time, in any place and over any device. As you can imagine, the systems that once enabled scenario A don’t enable scenario B.

When CSPs say they don’t want to become “dumb pipes,” they mean that they don’t want to be downgraded to “commodity” status as mere providers of transport and connected access. Instead, they want to cultivate a richer, more sustainable, more relevant connection with their user base by supplying intelligence and storage in the form of convenient digital services, which, when combined, become digital lifestyle experiences. 

To that end, CSPs are weathering massive transformations as they migrate from PSTN (public switched telephone network) topologies to all-IP (internet protocol) ones. The network is no longer just miles of copper in the ground, but a highly complex array of nodes, servers, access points, routers, IP switches, data centers, and base stations of all sizes.