There have been a number of 5G trial announcements in the last few months that show exciting progress in terms of increased network speed and lower latency. What all of these trials have in common, is that they are focused at the radio technology aspects of 5G.
Yet radio improvements alone are not sufficient to change the inherent value of a CSP network to its customers. The improvements in radio (particularly latency) are rapidly lost in the overall performance of the connectivity between customer equipment and the central cloud.
For CSPs to gain added value from 5G they need applications that cannot simply be delivered by connections to applications hosted in centralized data centers or the cloud. This will require computing power to be near the edge of the 5G network, hosting innovative applications that utilize the local increased bandwidth and lower latency.
Appledore Research has just published research looking at Edge Computing and how this can differentiate CSPs, beyond network connectivity. In the research, we look at the related topics of edge computing, white box CPE and improved radio access technology in 5G. We assess the current direction and economics of 5G and network slicing; the current direction and economics of universal CPE in CSPs and some of the existing standard and ecosystem initiatives in edge computing.
The report is recommended for CSPs and their suppliers looking at the adoption of 5G and edge computing.