5G+edge computing is in the first stage

On March 3, 2020, GSMA released the report "Edge computing in the 5G era: Technology and market developments in China" jointly completed with the Edge Computing Industry Alliance (ECC). The report analyzes the current status and future development of the edge computing ecosystem from multiple perspectives, including technology, applications, market prospects, opportunities, business models, and policies and regulations.

[[322570]]

Intel previously released a report titled "Building Edge Computing for 5G", which mainly introduced the background, application requirements, technical characteristics, application scenarios of edge computing, as well as the role and function played by Intel in promoting the innovation process of edge computing. Looking back two years later, some of the content is still not outdated.

This article summarizes and analyzes the relevant issues of the combination of 5G and edge computing in these two reports.

The intersection of 5G and edge computing and their main scenarios

According to the survey, the order of concern of enterprise users for the four major features of 5G is: high-speed data transmission > network slicing > massive device access > low-latency services. The survey also reflects to a certain extent the order of large-scale commercial use of edge scenarios corresponding to the above features. High-speed data transmission, which is the most concerned by enterprises, may be implemented fastest in edge scenarios based on CDN such as video, VR, and cloud games, while edge scenarios in industries such as Industry 4.0 and telemedicine based on low-latency characteristics are still exploring the combination of edge computing and 5G.

High-speed transmission of large-capacity data

• Features: The data transmission rate is much higher than previous cellular networks, up to 10Gbit/s, which is 100 times faster than the previous 4G LTE cellular network.
• Integration point: For 4K\8K video, AR\VR, cloud gaming, large bandwidth, and latency-sensitive services, CDN near-field computing can be combined to complete local traffic diversion, ensuring service experience while reducing the backbone network bandwidth occupied by data on the cloud and improving network utilization efficiency.
• Main scenarios: – Video and live broadcast: Video content providers can deploy edge data centers closer to users by sinking CDN, and a unified edge management platform can manage and schedule business containers. Combined with content-based routing addressing, local data diversion is achieved, reducing business latency and improving user experience. – AR/VR, cloud games: Based on 5G high-speed transmission, AR\VR, cloud game rendering calculations, transcoding and other business flows can be migrated from supporting terminal devices to the edge cloud for unified calculation, and then the results are returned to the terminal device. The terminal device only needs to receive and display. The network transmission and response time of 5G and the more powerful computing power of the edge cloud can be consistent with the previous AR\VR local computing latency, ensuring user experience.

Low latency, supporting real-time computing processing

• Features: 5G's latency is less than 1 millisecond, compared to 30-70 milliseconds for 4G.
• Integration point: For edge scenarios that are extremely sensitive to latency, such as smart transportation, industrial manufacturing, telemedicine and other industries, on-site computing with zero latency and reliable transmission can be achieved.
• Main scenarios: – Intelligent transportation: According to the survey, intelligent transportation scenarios will be the main edge scenarios in the 5G era, including intelligent transportation auditing, intelligent transportation video surveillance, and L4 and L5 level fully automatic driving and other transportation industry scenarios. The characteristics of 5G can meet the needs of a large number of edge devices in this scenario, and at the same time, extremely low latency business requirements. Combined with the characteristics of 5G network slicing, separate virtual channels can be planned for latency-sensitive services, and large-scale deployed edge infrastructure can be used for on-site calculations to complete real-time processing and return results. – Industrial manufacturing: Industrial scenarios need to improve productivity through high automation, and high automation has high requirements for low latency and high reliability network connections with high precision thresholds and real-time analysis. The high-speed and low-latency characteristics of 5G simplify the complexity of the original fixed-line wired deployment, solve the problems of unstable signals during WIFI access and packet loss when switching WIFI, and ensure the reliability of devices to stably access the edge management platform and complete real-time business calculations.

Support massive device access

• Features: 4G has a connection density of 100,000 devices per square kilometer, while 5G can reach a connection density of 1 million devices per square kilometer.
• Combination point: For IoT scenarios with large-scale device access, a combined fixed and mobile access method can be adopted, with all devices connected to a unified edge management platform to reduce data traffic detours.
• Main scenarios: – Internet of Things: According to the survey, enterprise IoT is an important driving force beyond the boundaries of connectivity. Currently, there are more than 1.5 billion IoT devices in the world, which are generally densely distributed in regions. Therefore, IoT platforms need to store, process and analyze large amounts of data, and provide IoT scenarios closer to users by deploying edge technologies to speed up analysis and response and provide better user experience.

Support network sharding

• Features: Operators can set network characteristics according to different scenario requirements, such as low latency, high throughput, connection density, etc., and the corresponding devices access the corresponding shards.
• Combination point: Combined with the massive device access feature, it supports providing different QOS services for different types of traffic and has good isolation for edge scenarios of multiple business flows.
• Main scenarios: – Industrial applications: For businesses running on private network slices over public network infrastructure, isolation may become a major network requirement. In this scenario, each virtual network slice should run isolated from other network slices. Some edge computing applications may also have specific security and privacy requirements, such as applications that store or transmit confidential data (personal data or corporate data). In these cases, isolated network slices can minimize the risk of data leakage and ensure the effective transmission of protected (encrypted and authenticated) data. Isolation is particularly important for industrial application cases, and typical cases can refer to applications in the energy and oil and gas fields.

Future market outlook for edge computing in the 5G era

Looking ahead to the next 10 years, the edge computing market will see major changes. 5G provides an opportunity for various industries and enterprises to implement larger-scale digital transformation, and new challenges emerge as a result. Technological innovation has spawned new scenarios and businesses, and the expansion of business has also given technology more room for implementation, which in turn can promote technological progress.

More and more companies are paying attention to 5G+edge computing. According to the GSMA think tank's global enterprise IoT survey, 76% of Chinese companies plan to use 5G technology when deploying IoT in the future. About half of Chinese companies believe that their future IoT deployments will require edge capabilities, especially in the manufacturing and transportation industries. Compared with the average level, companies in these industries are more likely to explore edge computing technologies to help their business development.

5G combined with edge computing has put the two major infrastructure-based industries in the ICT field (cloud computing and telecommunications) on the stage of competition. For telecom operators, cloud-network integration is an important strategy in the 5G era and an important business opportunity to seize cloud market share. Operators can extract new application scenarios from the integration of cloud, edge and core telecommunications networks (mobile and fixed). For example, network slicing can be used to reserve defined network capacity slices for specific enterprise customers (such as smart factories or smart ports) to provide more possibilities, or the 5G network itself can be opened to third-party developers to create an ecosystem for 5G business development at the edge of the network.

Faced with the natural advantages of operators in 5G+edge computing, traditional cloud service and edge computing service providers also need to leverage their own advantages to combine technologies such as cloud-edge collaboration, edge business orchestration, and edge resource management with increasingly mature 5G technologies to provide highly reliable, low-latency, large-scale 5G edge computing services.

For operators and cloud service providers, the edge computing industry in the 5G era is a stage for competition and cooperation. The two should unite to give full play to their respective advantages, and then combine with application service providers in various vertical fields to provide full-stack services of 5G network + edge computing platform + application business, and jointly expand the market scale.

5G edge computing deployment phase

5G edge deployment may be divided into three stages, reflecting the gradual deployment of 5G networks, the speed of digital transformation of industries and enterprises, and the maturity of edge computing.

Phase 1: 2018-2020, trials and small-scale customized deployments. In this phase, edge computing deployments are mostly private and customized applications designed specifically to meet enterprise needs, such as smart ports, smart parks or smart factories, and edge technology is mainly deployed locally. Testing, verification and demonstration of public applications such as live broadcasts (smart stadiums) will also appear in this phase, but on a limited scale. Market education is the key to this phase. This requires not only explaining the advantages of edge computing in a technical language that Chinese companies can understand, but also explaining how the deployment of edge computing benefits some companies, such as how edge computing can solve some technical pain points.

Phase 2: 2021-2023, with initial commercial scale. At this stage, 5G networks are becoming more and more popular (it is expected that by the end of 2023, 5G network coverage will exceed 60% of the population), and the deployment of private edge computing facilities in the first phase will begin to generate benefits on a larger scale. In addition to locally customized edge computing applications, public applications such as autonomous driving, sports events, and games will also be explored more, with edge computing infrastructure deployed in regions or cities, close to base stations or aggregation base stations. At this stage, the cost of edge computing applications is higher because a large number of micro data centers are operated with fewer available tenants to distribute computing loads.

Phase 3: After 2024, it will become mainstream. By the end of 2025, China's 5G population coverage is expected to exceed 70%. The maturity of 5G technology, the reduction of 5G equipment costs, and the good cooperation between the mobile industry and enterprises will promote the expansion of edge computing deployment. As the number of 5G base stations increases, edge computing can be deployed more widely and can be increasingly used in public edge computing application scenarios.