Initial focus on MEC experience management and deployment
Theres a line of thinking that 5G service revenues are inextricably linked to mobile edge computing (MEC); to take advantage of the latency benefits baked in to 5G, compute has to be decentralized and located closer to where data is generated. The combination of 5G and MEC can support new types of enterprise use cases which will create new service revenue opportunities for operators.
In pursuit of these new dollars, the operator-led 5G Future Forum this week said it will release in the third quarter two technical specifications developed with an eye on “enabling global interoperability for 5G and…MEC deployment to deliver efficient and innovative services to end customers,” according to a statement from Verizon.
The 5G Future Forum was put together in January by América Móvil, KT, Rogers, Telstra, Verizon and Vodafone. The goal was and is to work out interoperability issues to accelerate time-to-market and time-to-revenue. This week the group gave a look at two upcoming specifications:
- MEC Experience Management “defines a set of intent-based APIs for functional exposure of edge and workload discovery with potential expansion to include further MEC functions and capabilities which are driven by network intelligence.”
- And MEC Deployment provides a technical roadmap for “hyperscalers and service providers to deploy and integrate global MEC physical frameworks, including facilities (e.g. power and cooling), monitoring, operational considerations, and security.”
The group said, following the planned August specification release, it could expand membership “to qualified new entrants.”
Verizon’s Rima Qureshi, chief strategy officer, called out use cases, “including machine learning, autonomous industrial equipment, smart cars and cities, internet of things…and augmented and virtual reality. The release of these first specifications marks a major step forward in helping companies around the world create a seamless global experience for their customers.”
