Edge computing is critical to most operators planning a modern, cloud-native approach to future 5G build-out. Rakuten is in the process of implementing 4,000 edge nodes to support the digital network functions for its distributed, open RAN. Dish has not put a number on its own, similar plan but has said it will create “one of the first large-scale distributed data lakes” to support both its RAN and customer-facing data services and applications. This will extract, analyze and store information at the edge of the network, moving out as far as edge nodes on aggregation sites or even cell sites. Dish’s edge cloud will use components from multiple vendors including COTS servers plus accelerators to enable the more demanding RAN functions,…