Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
There are different ways to implement edge clouds, depending on the access technology. Macro cells vendors embed secured computing and virtualization capabilities directly into 3G or 4G base stations. This integration of applications with radio equipment allows operators to rapidly deliver innovative network features, accelerate over-the-top services and enable a variety of new high-value services. Such flexible services are executed at a very strategic location in the mobile network, making them much more essential than any other applications run at the core. This architecture is particularly relevant to:
- Improve mobile users’ experience, by reducing latency, improving quality of service or providing customized services, leveraging small cell systems for coverage, capacity and localized services.
- Improve infrastructure’s efficiency, with more intelligent and optimized small cell networks
- Enable disruptive vertical services, particularly relevant for machine-to-machine scenarios, big data management, analytics, and much more…
- Tight integration with radio equipment, making it easy to intercept traffic, deal with radio conditions, get device location information, etc.
Small cells and edge cloud
When it comes to 3G/4G Small Cell and Wi-Fi, edge clouds take the form of powerful on-premise software gateways, where dedicated intelligence serves local purposes. Through lightweight virtualization, these software hosted gateways can run multiple services applied to the particular location they are installed in, such as:
- Machine-to-machine scenarios: Connecting to various sensors, edge cloud services can deal with all sorts of monitoring activities (Video surveillance, air conditioning, elevators, temperature, humidity, access control, etc.)
- Retail Solutions: Having the ability to locate and communicate with mobile devices, there is an opportunity to deliver higher value to the consumers and the malls. For example delivering content based on location, implementing augmenting reality, improving the overall shopping experience, or dealing with secured online payment.
- Stadiums, airports, stations, theatres: Specific services can help manage other types of crowded places, in particular to deal with safety, security, evacuation, or to provide new kinds of services to the public. For example stadiums could broadcast (or multicast) live content to the public, airports could guide passengers to their gates through an augmented reality service, and many more. All these applications would leverage local content and conditions to be perfectly adapted to their audience.
- Big data and analytics: Last but not least, the information gathered at this key point in the network, can be leveraged as part of a bigger analytics initiative.
Earlier this year, at Mobile World Congress, IBM, Intel and SpiderCloud Wireless showed the benefits of running virtual machines and applications on a SpiderCloud small cell system. IBM location and detection virtual machine hosted on the SpiderCloud Small Cell Services Node showing handset-to-location video and advertising “push” services for use at venues and shopping malls.
