Multi-Access Edge Computing: A 5G Technology

One of the most challenging KPIs defined by the ITU-T (IMT-2020) for 5G is “latency below 1 ms”. This is a key requirement for an emerging era of new applications, such as virtual and augmented reality, video analytics, or Industry 4.0. Those applications require low latency to enable the so-called tactile Internet. However, relying on large centralized datacenters as today, this requirement defies the laws of physics. The solution is edge computing, a technology aiming to deploy applications at the edge of the network, closer to end users. Altice Labs has been following the standardization of this technology, and is currently prototyping a fully functional and ETSI MEC standard-compliant solution. The first version of this prototype has been already released, and a proof-of-concept has been deployed in a Lab environment. This paper describes the edge computing technology, the prototype under development, the PoC integration and the results of the preliminary evaluation already performed.