News tagged: Smart Cities

24 September, 2020

Equinix data centres to connect Nokia to mobile, IoT and cloud ecosystems

Digital infrastructure company, Equinix, Inc., has been selected as a strategic supplier for Nokia’s Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING) managed service, in a collaboration to bring next-generation edge architectures and services to market. WING allows operators without an Internet of Things (IoT) footprint to gain fast entry to the IoT market or to help operators expand an existing IoT business. (more…)

04 September, 2020

ADTRAN enables IoT market to scale for network operators

ADTRAN, Inc, a provider of innovative business and residential connectivity solutions, announced at its 2020 Virtual CONNECT Press & Analyst Event that it is leveraging its expertise in carrier-grade broadband access network reliability to address specific Internet of Things (IoT) scale challenges. (more…)

17 January, 2019

5G and the edge – it’s not just the future

We’re moving to a 5G world. It’ll be one where data is vital to our daily lives. Data now needs to be instantaneous. Any delay, even for an nth of a second, could be catastrophic in an always-on world. That nth could be a tenth of a second, nothing more. But no matter how fast your fibre connection, if information has to travel across continents to get to you, there’s going to be latency, writes Jack Pouchet, the vice president of business development at Vertiv.

Imagine sitting in an autonomous car at 70mph with vehicles whizzing all around you. That nth of a second could be the difference between a collision and a smooth journey home.

Smart cities, the Internet of Things (IoT), connected cars, online gaming and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications are all driving the demand for instant connections. This, in turn, is driving the trend to edge computing.

On-the-edge computing, as the industry calls it, removes that latency and provides the instant connectivity the modern world and mission critical applications demand.

History to lead the future
As a result, the edge will both benefit from, and drive the development of, more reliable and faster internet connections. It makes for a shared future between the edge and 5G. However, it’s not just the future that connects them – these technologies could in fact benefit from key learnings in each other’s past evolution. The implementation of 4G LTE (long-term evolution) is a great example. Whereas 3G could connect society more easily, 4G truly brought high-speed data connectivity to the masses. It expanded quickly and became integral to society’s day-to-day life.

This illustrates that businesses and society will eagerly adopt any new developments in 5G as well. Given its correlation with the edge, it could imply that the edge needs to be 5G ready. But how can you be ready for something that’s undefined at the moment? This is not impossible, as it primarily means the edge needs to be communication ready, and this is already feasible. Vertiv can, for example, offer fully integrated and scalable systems with high-quality communications capabilities.

Another key learning from the 3G/4G/5G evolution is its inherent influence on infrastructure development. Whereas 3G allowed for places of leisure, such as McDonald’s and airports, to become connectivity hubs, 4G enabled the further implementation of technology globally, both in cities and rural areas. With the boost in implementation and usage also came an increased need for more robust, secure edge resources.

Similarly, the edge will see a change in infrastructure needs with the progress of 5G. We don’t yet know what 5G cellular architectures will look like. However, we know they will enable more consumer applications, as well as potential other applications we haven’t imagined yet. This means that telco, cloud and colocation architectures will evolve to meet 5G and edge needs. It is expected that cloud and colocation companies will continue to expand their footprint to provide services closer to users. This, combined with the continued deployment of edge-ready local infrastructure, matched to archetypes and use cases, will create an edge ecosystem that extends far beyond traditional small-space edge deployments.

The current edge

It seems like the direction of future developments is not as mysterious as one might think. So how ready is the industry for 5G and edge computing to really take hold? In an effort to understand and foresee future demand, Vertiv analysed a variety of emerging use cases, resulting in the ‘Edge Archetypes’ report. The report identified four primary edge archetypes:

• Data intensive

This represents use cases where the amount of data makes it impractical to transfer over the network directly to the cloud, or from the cloud to the point-of-use, because of data volume, cost or bandwidth issues. This includes the technologies needed for smart cities.

• Human-latency sensitive

This includes use cases where services are optimised for human consumption, for example smart retail and augmented reality. Speed is of the essence for these use cases, hence the need to use the edge.

• Machine-to-machine latency sensitive

This segment covers use cases where services are optimised for machine-to-machine consumption. Machines can process data much faster than humans and therefore require a higher speed. Examples include developments for Smart Grid and Defence force simulation.

• Life critical

The final archetype speaks to the imagination: it covers use cases that directly impact human health and safety – thus requiring speed and reliability. Technologies such as drones, digital health and smart transportation fall into this segment.

Developments in 5G cellular networks will both enable and drive the evolution of these archetypes, and the edge in general, to allow for the implementation of edge-dependent applications.

It might seem like these developments are still out of reach and need to be government-driven due to its vastness. However, the commercial sector is more likely to truly drive this evolution with the development of consumer-oriented services and apps – increasing the demand of the edge’s capabilities.

With the available knowledge at hand and the opportunity for the commercial sector to drive demand, the realisation of edge computing and 5G cellular networks might just be closer than you think.

12 December, 2018

How the information age can tackle crime in street-smart cities

A new age has begun. Smart city technology is surging through the veins of the UK, tackling crime and driving technological prosperity to make our world a better, safer place, writes Chris Mason, director of sales EMEA at Rajant.

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15 October, 2018

Smart, sustainable cities must ride the millimetre wave

What comes to mind when you think about sustainability? Curbing pollution? Prohibiting industrial waste? Filtering plastic from the ocean? A five pence tax on plastic bags? It might be all or none of the above – but it’s unlikely to be wireless networks. Yet, if implemented properly, network technology will play a significant role in ushering in a sustainable revolution in cities and urban areas around the world, writes Lionel Chmilewsky, the chief executive of Cambridge Broadband Networks (CBNL).

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04 October, 2018

CSPs ready to mind the 5G revenue gap

John Lenns, the vice president of product management at Oracle’s Communications Business Unit, tells George Malim that, as 5G arrives, communications service providers (CSPs) are preparing to bridge the potential revenue gap between traditional services and the new opportunities and use cases enabled by 5G and associated technologies. It’s not just about connectivity anymore.

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21 August, 2018

It’s time to prepare for the 5G revolution

It’s time to prepare for another high-intensity marketing campaign from the combined forces of the mobile comms industry. This time, the hype will be focused on 5G, very much the next big thing in mobile network standards, writes Remi De-Fouchier, the senior vice president of Marketing and Strategy at Gemalto.

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12 July, 2018

Wi-Fi to be critical enabler of 5G smart cities, sensors and safety use cases

Tiago Rodrigues is the general manager of the Wireless Broadband Alliance. Here he tells VanillaPlus the Wi-Fi is playing an increasingly important role in the development of 5G and will, in fact, be a critical component of the emerging, early 5G use cases.

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16 May, 2018

Will digital transformation be operators’ next big miss?

At this year’s Digital Transformation World, the re-named TM Forum Live! event held in Nice, France, this week, much of the conversation has been about just how far operators’ digital transformations will go, writes VanillaPlus managing editor, George Malim.

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13 April, 2018

Lurie lures CSPs to Synchronoss with promise of platforms for cloud era competition

Glenn Lurie, the chief executive of Synchronoss, tells George Malim that the coming together of cloud, IoT and 5G capabilities gives communications service providers (CSPs) an opportunity to choose their own destinies in the digital economy

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