This paper examines various calculations of the total cost of ownership (TCO) for service providers’ networks and telco clouds, with a specific emphasis on 5G Core/RAN and future edge service advancements.

We delve into the TCO benefits that service providers can anticipate by using Red Hat solutions—particularly a unified cloud application platform. Numerous research and models conducted by industry analysts have indicated substantial TCO savings of unified, horizontal architectures versus more isolated, vertical cloud architectures, ranging from 30% to over 40%. These savings primarily stem from operational expenditure (OpEx) reductions achieved through resource sharing, improved productivity, and automation implementation.