- AT&T launched a cloud-managed version of its video monitoring service, EdgeVis Cloud, running over cellular, wired and Wi-Fi networks
- The carrier built the service on partner Digital Barriers' video technology, with AT&T providing integration. network, security and orchestration
- EdgeVis Cloud is part of the operator's push to move up the stack, selling managed services beyond basic connectivity
AT&T Business has launched a cloud-managed version of its video monitoring service, AT&T Video Intelligence with EdgeVis Cloud. The move is as much about the carrier's enterprise ambitions as it is about cameras.
EdgeVis Cloud is a managed service that streams live video from cameras, processes the footage close to where it is captured and runs analytics that flag events — an object that has moved, a person entering a restricted zone — then alerts staff by text or email. AT&T hosts and maintains the back end. The service works with IP cameras, Android and iOS devices and existing video management systems.
EdgeVis Cloud is the latest step in AT&T's effort to sell more than connectivity — to move up the stack into managed services that carry higher margins and stickier customer relationships. It is a strategy every large carrier is chasing, and one where telcos have a mixed record against cloud providers and specialist vendors.
What is AT&T selling?
Digital Barriers, a specialist in low-bandwidth video streaming over cellular, supplies AT&T with video intelligence and optimization for EdgeVis Cloud. AT&T provides the network, the security and the orchestration.
The partnership is key to the service's value, said Lani Ingram, vice president of connected solutions at AT&T Business, in an interview with Fierce. The value to enterprises is integration, Ingram said.
"You could potentially buy various piece parts, but to get it all working together and to have a seamless operation — it sounds like a simple thing, but it's actually quite hard to do," she said. Businesses can hand off installation, management and security to the carrier and stay focused on running their own operations, she said.
What makes cloud video different from a fixed camera?
Mobility is an important part of the service. Traditional surveillance cameras are wired to fiber or Wi-Fi and stay put. EdgeVis Cloud runs over cellular, so monitoring can move with a business — onto a construction site, a pop-up event or a hard-to-reach location — and process video locally rather than hauling it back to a central data center. "It allows you to be able to do things locally right there on the edge where you need it," Ingram said.
EdgeVis Cloud sits inside AT&T's Connected Solutions unit, the carrier's IoT and edge business, which AT&T's Lee Wagner, who runs the unit's IoT solutions and services business, said in a July interview generates about $2 billion in revenue and is growing toward $3 billion. Ingram called video "one of the pillars" of the effort to go beyond basic connectivity, and pointed to future uses in robotics, connected vehicles and "Vision Zero" traffic-safety programs that use predictive analysis to warn of pedestrians before they step into traffic.
Enterprises are starting to show interest in edge compute, AT&T told Fierce in June. And as part of its enterprise services push, AT&T is partnering with Wiliot on industrial IoT logistics. One shipping customer put Wiliot's tags on thousands of trailers, drastically cutting property losses.
AT&T partnered with Nvidia on distributed AI this year, with projects in AT&T's Discovery District, a four-block entertainment and dining destination in Dallas, as well as a commercial underway with an industrial services firm in Louisiana.
T-Mobile is among AT&T's competition, with its own Nvidia partnership pushing physical AI to the network edge.
Learn more about AT&T's enterprise strategy
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