Yahoo Finance Presents: Verizon Business EVP & CEO Tami Erwin

In this episode of Yahoo Finance Presents, anchor Zack Guzman speaks with Verizon Business Executive Vice President & CEO Tami Erwin to discuss 5G mobile edge compute going live for developers, with AWS Wavelength at Verizon’s 5G Edge in Boston and the Bay Area.

Video transcript

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ZACK GUZMAN: Well, big news in the 5G space as Verizon, also Yahoo Finance's parent company, is teaming up with Amazon to offer more of the fastest speeds in a partnership for more business solutions. And here to discuss the new possibilities is the executive vise president and CEO of Verizon Business. Tami Erwin joins us now. And Tami, thank you so much for chatting.

We know Verizon's been leading the charge with 5G tech. But why team up with Amazon on this one?

TAMI ERWIN: Yeah, so Zack, thank you. We are very excited today to be able to be commercially in the marketplace, with AWS on their Wavelength combined with our 5G leadership in network capability, to really be able to bring together the compute and storage to the 5G network to enable 5G Edge, which is what we're commercially launching today. We think it's a game changer for businesses around the world. And it gives us the capability to really innovate and deliver new and creative things, which is super exciting.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and 5G can kind of be this ephemeral thing. But with AWS Wavelength, I know you guys are already kicking off some interesting business opportunities out there. But as you look, as other people are going to be leveraging this technology, what do you think might be some of those real-world possibilities that people might be able to build on here?

TAMI ERWIN: Yeah, so I think there's so many possibilities. And what I love about today's announcement is that we now open up the sandbox to developers to really come in and innovate and ideate with the full eight currency capability of 5G millimeter wave. There's so much that can be done when you have the ability to have cloud capab-- and compute and storage at the edge with capabilities like low latency.

So let me give you some examples. I think about smart factories. I think about smart cities. I think about autonomous industrial equipment. When you have low latency capability, it is a game changer.

You think about gaming, the gaming world. Bethesda Gaming was one of our initial launch partners when we were in a proof of concept environment. The medical community is another one. We'll announce today a partnership with Avesha, where when you have the ability in the diagnostic environment to have low-latency capability, you can have game-changing outcomes for manufacturing, for smart cities, autonomous vehicles, education. It's pretty amazing what's possible.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and when you think about what is possible out there, too-- as you say, opening the sandbox here-- how long do you think it might take for some of these other solutions to come to market in terms of you're rolling this out, new technology, people getting familiar with it. I mean, what does it look like in terms of the timeline here in Verizon Business' strategy to kind of roll this out and have everyone use it as well as you hope?

TAMI ERWIN: Yeah, I think as you develop the 5G ecosystem, Verizon was first in the world with 5G mobility, 5G fixed wireless, and now 5G mobile edge compute. As the ecosystem develops and more and more people have devices in the marketplace, app developers will really innovate very, very quickly. We will launch eight more commercial locations in 2020. So we'll have 10 commercial locations. They have wide-reaching coverage, so I expect the development will happen very quickly.

I think it's important to note, Verizon has been very clear about the expectation that we really see revenue growth coming in 2022. So this is about developing the ecosystem, leading the world once again about how do you take 5G, the powered millimeter wave, and really create an innovative capability to broaden that ecosystem? So I think you'll see innovation examples come very, very quickly. I think you'll scale those as the ecosystem develops. And we expect that it will be really important for our shareholders as we get to 2022.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and when we talk about scaling it, interesting to note that this partnership with AWS here, when we're talking about this 5G Edge technology, starting in Boston and the Bay Area. Where are you looking at in terms of locations to start rolling out more use cases for technology like this?

TAMI ERWIN: Yeah, so we think Boston and the Bay Area are two great locations. Boston's got so much education and so much health care focus, and certainly the Silicon Valley, as you open it up there. You'll see eight more locations. So we can expect that we've got a really wide swath of coverage, because developers will begin to develop today across all kinds of different verticals.

When we do our kickoff here today at 1 o'clock, the ability to showcase for innovators the eight currencies that are available through 5G mobile edge compute, I think that's what they're going to get really excited about. We use latency as one example. But there's everything from bigger bandwidth capabilities, sensor densification. And so the possibilities are really endless.

And the thing I've seen, Zack, post-COVID, is that businesses are rapidly looking to deliver digital transformation, to have game-changing experiences for their customers, and to take cost out in a meaningful way. I think mobile edge compute, 5G Edge from Verizon and AWS, is one of the tools that will enable businesses to really scale the potential as they radically deliver digital transformation.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and AWS joining as the latest partner, obviously. You guys teamed up with IBM a few weeks back. I mean, how important does it become to kind of leverage technology partners out there to help make sure that people know this technology is out there and understand what the capabilities might be?

TAMI ERWIN: Yeah, I think it is so critical that we partner with others to deliver at a rapid scale what customers require from us as partners. What I love about the partnership with AWS is it's bringing to great businesses together with leading edge technology to be able to serve our customers differently and to create an innovation sandbox so that we can really begin to innovate fast on behalf of B2B and in B2B to C, because this is where it really comes to life for consumers and for businesses. And we think partnerships are a critical component of that as we look to scale and deliver solutions faster on behalf of our customers.

ZACK GUZMAN: All right, well, there you go-- the latest on the 5G tech front. It's out there. It's live. Tami Erwin, Verizon Business Group Executive Vice President and CEO, appreciate you taking the time.

TAMI ERWIN: Thanks so much. Be well.