In the 5G era, how do the three major operators fight the edge war?

5G makes the Internet of Everything possible. While the generation of massive data puts tremendous pressure on the network, it also pushes the demand for computing power to the edge. Edge computing has received unprecedented attention around the world, and the demand is constantly expanding. Data shows that by 2020, there will be 50 billion terminals and devices connected to the Internet, of which more than 50% of the data will be analyzed, processed and stored at the edge of the network. The market size of edge computing can reach trillions.

The report "Edge Computing in the 5G Era: Technology and Market Development in China" points out that China has the world's largest and most developed IoT market, and the three major operators have formulated ambitious 5G plans, including the 5G SA network planned to be launched from 2020. China's leading position in 5G and IoT has created a good industrial environment for the development of the edge computing industry, and operators are at the core of the industry.

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The three major operators are competing to make efforts

Edge computing application scenarios are rapidly extending to the IoT application field, which coincides with the innovative applications of operators in the 5G era. Therefore, vigorously developing edge computing and promoting the implementation of 5G edge computing applications have become the top priority for operators.

China Mobile established the Edge Computing Open Laboratory as early as October 30, 2018, dedicated to providing an industry cooperation platform, gathering the advantages of edge computing in various industries, and promoting the prosperity and development of the edge computing ecosystem. It currently has 34 partners.

In the application field, China Mobile's Edge Computing Open Laboratory has built a total of 15 test beds with partners, covering emerging technologies such as high-definition video processing, artificial intelligence, TSN, and involving multiple scenarios such as smart buildings, smart construction, flexible manufacturing, CDN, cloud games, and Internet of Vehicles.

At the beginning of 2019, China Mobile also released the "China Mobile Edge Computing Technology White Paper" to clarify the technical route and the edge computing "Pioneer 300" pioneer action, aiming to evaluate 100 test nodes that can deploy edge computing devices in 2019, open 100 edge computing capability APIs, and introduce 100 edge computing partners to help commercial applications land. At present, this goal has been basically achieved.

China Unicom is a "pioneer" in edge computing pilot projects. As early as February 2018, it announced the official launch of edge cloud scale pilot projects in 15 provinces and cities across the country and the large-scale construction of thousands of edge data centers.

During the 2019 MWC Shanghai, China Unicom officially unveiled the "5G+Edge Cloud Business Operation Center" and held a "Signing Ceremony for the First Batch of Commercial Partners" to share with the industry how China Unicom will enable 5G in thousands of industries through MEC edge cloud "1 business operation center, 10 incubation bases, 100 industry applications, and 1,000 edge nodes".

China Unicom's MEC edge cloud has gathered many excellent partners in the industrial chain and has carried out pilot projects in more than 20 cities in China. It has successively created application demonstration benchmarks such as smart venues, smart security, smart ports, smart scenic spots, smart water conservancy, smart campuses, smart shopping malls, cloud games and cloud VR, paving the way for 5G commercial use.

At the same time, in terms of products, China Unicom Edge Cloud has also built an open and flexible edge business platform CUBE-Edge, and jointly incubated innovative business products such as Edge-Eye, Edge-Video new media, Edge-Link industrial machine vision inspection, Edge-Link AR/holographic remote teaching and maintenance, and intelligent networking.

China Telecom has proposed a 5G MEC converged architecture in terms of MEC. Based on a general hardware platform, it supports the rapid deployment of MEC functions and business applications. It also supports the sinking of user-side services and local deployment of business applications, and realizes the distributed, close-range, on-demand deployment of user planes and services. It also supports network information perception and openness.

At present, China Telecom has carried out some exploration of MEC, and there are mainly three deployment modes: the first is the point mode, which is deployed on-demand and point-to-point for high-density, high-traffic, and high-value customers such as large shopping malls, campuses, and museums, and provides caching, push, positioning, etc.; the second is the block mode, which is aimed at large and medium-sized government and enterprise customers with local data centers and cloud service needs such as large parks, factories, and ports, and provides virtual private networks, business hosting, exclusive applications, etc.; the third is the fog mode, which is aimed at customers who need to provide nearby services to a large number of end users across regions and a large range, and is deployed on a provincial and national scale to provide edge CDN, storage, industry services, etc.

Deploy edge computing in three steps

The report "Edge Computing in the 5G Era: Technology and Market Development in China" points out that early edge deployments are designed to meet the needs of smart ports, smart parks and smart factories. As 5G networks expand in the next few years, edge use cases such as autonomous driving, sports events and games will be realized.

The ECC said that there are currently more than 100 edge computing projects being launched in various industries in 40 cities in China, including projects in the fields of smart parks, smart manufacturing, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), cloud gaming, smart ports, smart mining and smart transportation.

In addition, the report said that Chinese operators expect to deploy edge computing in three steps, which also reflects the gradual deployment of 5G networks and the speed of digitalization of industries and enterprises.

• The first wave (2018-2020): Experimental networks and customized small-scale deployments: In this phase, edge deployments mainly involve specialized scenarios, aiming to meet the needs of smart ports, smart parks, and smart factories, and edge infrastructure is mostly deployed on-site. Market education is the key to attracting companies.
• The second wave (2021-2023): Initial commercial scale: As Chinese operators deploy 5G networks on a large scale (GSMA think tank predicts that 5G networks will cover 60% of China's population by the end of 2023), edge computing applications such as autonomous driving, sports events and games will also be explored more, and edge infrastructure will be deployed near base station aggregation points, counties/urban areas, and regional data centers.
• The third wave (after 2024): Becoming mainstream: With the maturity of 5G technology, the reduction of 5G equipment costs, and the deepening of collaboration between the mobile industry and enterprises, the scale of edge computing deployment will gradually expand. The further development of autonomous driving and smart manufacturing technologies has created a more favorable environment, and the demand for edge deployment has also increased. As the scale grows, the economics and efficiency of edge computing have been improved (such as nano-processing), and market acceptance has also increased.

Seven key measures to meet the challenges

The recent progress in edge computing, coupled with the clear goal of China's ecological positioning at the forefront of new technologies, has laid a solid foundation for further development of edge computing. However, there are still some key issues to be resolved in the development of edge computing, such as the most feasible location of the network "edge", the level of investment required, and the most suitable business model.

The report identifies the following seven key measures:

• First, clarify the best deployment model for edge computing and promote edge standardization;
• The second is to integrate edge computing into the broader 5G network investment plan;
• The third is to address the high energy costs associated with cloud/edge computing and more broadly 5G networks;
• Fourth, industrial collaboration will be further expanded to expand the discussion between edge computing and vertical industries;
• Fifth, leverage enterprises’ understanding of edge computing to promote new edge computing pilots and deployments;
• Sixth, increase the attention of media entertainment and smart city industries to edge computing;
• Seventh, establish an industrial policy with clear content, a focus more on edge computing, and taking into account the unique nature and challenges of edge deployment.

Many of these measures involve the entire edge computing ecosystem, while some are targeted at specific types of companies. If implemented, these measures will promote the development and application of edge technology in China in the next five years.