Tactile
internet
April/May/June 2020 I 29
Autonomous driving
coverage to 98 of the top 100 markets. In the article,
Crown Castle: No Plans for Edge Data Centers, it is also
cited that Crown Castle’s two largest rivals both purchased
data centers in 2019 to develop their strategies for mobile
edge computing. Thus, the jury is still out.
Cisco offers the following perspective in its white
paper, Establishing the Edge. “Some organizations are testing
edge computing at the cell-site itself. At first glance,
this approach might appear reasonable because it puts the
computing as close as possible to the mobile subscribers.
However, several issues result:
• It is operationally complex because of the typically
large number of cell sites.
• It’s expensive due to enclosures, power, and HVAC
needs. Specialized servers may be needed versus
tapping mass scale production servers.
• New trends in radio are for leaner cell-site architectures
comprised primarily of lean elements such
as remote radio heads. Note: Cloud radio access
networks (C-RANs) don’t have packet-awareness
at the cell site.”
Figure 2 serves as a reminder that 10 milliseconds (ms)
is only one thousandth of a second or 0.01 seconds and
100 ms equals only 0.1 seconds, which are undetectable
time lapses for users. Even at 1000 ms, many users are
quite satisfied with a 1 second delay time. Virtual reality,
for example, may be a driver for low latency and high
bandwidth applications, but such applications can and
do function today using local computers (i.e., desktops
and gaming consoles) with standard consumer connections
to centralized data centers via the internet.
Although 5G is here, according to GSMA’s Network 2020
Unlocking Commercial Opportunities From 4G Evolution to
5G global research report, 5G will be coexisting with 4G
as mobile operators seek to capture new opportunities with
5G while maintaining service and business continuity for
their existing operations. Globally, 5G will account for
only 10 percent of non-machine-to-machine connections
whereas 4G will account for approximately 60 percent of
connections by 2025; 5G services will account for less than
10 percent of mobile services revenues by 2025 per Juniper
Research findings. As Figure 2 shows, many services in
demand are already successfully delivered using current
4G capabilities.
As data collection devices find new ways to collect
and use data, the latency requirements may become
Delay
1 ms
<1 Mb/s 1 Mb/s 10 Mb/s 100 Mb/s >1 GB
10 ms
100 ms
1000 ms
Disaster alert
Services
deliverable by 4G
and evolved 4G
Services requiring
5G capabilities
Person to person
Person to machine
Machine to machine
First responder
connectivity
Video streaming
Personal cloud
Virtual
reality
Automotive
ecall
Wireless cloud
based office
Monitoring sensor
networks
Real time
gaming
Mulit-person
video call
Bi-directional
remote
controlling
Augmented
reality
Device
remote
controlling
Bandwidth
Throughput
–
–
+
+
FIGURE 2: 5G supported services matrix. Source: GSMA Intelligence, Network 2020 Unlocking Commercial Opportunities
From 4G Evolution to 5G.