Minutes later, you hear an announcement that the event is canceled, and you’re sandwiched in with thousands of others – everyone wanting to get to the same mass transportation services as quickly as possible.
This sounds like a potentially bad scenario, but with the right 5G mobile technology, the stadium can easily transmit local content to the public. In real-time, they can communicate the safest and most efficient steps to get people where they need to go and make sure they all followed their individual paths – all thanks to multi-access edge computing (MEC) — also known as mobile edge computing.
MEC can be defined as cloud services running at the edge of a network and performing specific tasks — in real- or near-real-time — that would otherwise be processed in centralized core or cloud infrastructures. MEC moves computing power closer to the end-user in order to enable applications and services requiring unique connectivity characteristics such as ultra-low latency. It allows content, services and applications to be accelerated by increasing their responsiveness.
For the Communications Service Provider (CSP), new applications that are aware of the local context in which they operate (RAN and vRAN conditions, locality, subscriber information, etc.) can open up entire new service categories. For example, mobile operators that are now introducing 5G can leverage the same cloud native infrastructure to run both MEC and vRANs on the same COTs hardware.
Placing relevant applications on or near the base station not only offers advantages to consumer and enterprise end users, it also reduces the volume of traffic offloaded to the core network and minimizes operational costs (OPEX) and helps to address security and data governance issues
Finally, MEC means being able to rapidly deploy new services for consumer and enterprise business segments, which can help them differentiate their service portfolio and increase new revenue streams.
Please take the time to explore other use cases — such as Open RAN, vRAN and 5G network slicing (link resides outside ibm.com) — and further examine the ways automation and AIOps support 5G network transformation. In the meantime, please check out the following resources:
Discover how autonomous edge management empowers CIOs to increase revenue and cost savings across industries, revolutionizing edge computing approaches.
Learn how edge computing can revolutionize data management for industries operating in remote locations. Explore IBM’s solutions to manage data efficiently and securely at the edge, reducing latency and enhancing operational efficiency.
Discover how Innocens BV, in collaboration with IBM Cloud, uses predictive AI to drastically reduce the time needed to identify at-risk newborns for sepsis. This cutting-edge solution enhances neonatal care, providing earlier intervention and saving lives.
Automate operations, improve experiences and enhance safety measures with edge computing solutions from IBM.
IBM Power is a family of servers that are based on IBM Power processors and are capable of running IBM AIX, IBM i and Linux.
Automate operations, improve experiences, and enhance safety measures with edge computing solutions from IBM.
IBM cloud strategy consulting offers hybrid multicloud transformation services to accelerate cloud journey and optimize technology environments.