A conversation about edge computing with Debashish Purkayastha, Member of Technical Staff, InterDigital
The below is only a summary. Download a transcript of the complete interview and access the complete report “Power at the Edge: Processing and storage move from the central core to the network edge”.
MEC and, more generally, edge computing are crucial to ensuring that low-latency and high-reliability applications can be successfully deployed in 4G and 5G networks. Debashish Purkayastha, Member of Technical Staff at InterDigital, shared with us his thoughts on how this transition to mobile edge computing, through initiatives such as MEC and OpenFog, will change the way we operate and benefit from wireless networks, and how we will be able to meet the new latency and reliability requirements.
Debashish sees MEC and 5G to support each other: “MEC will hit its potential with 5G, and 5G will hit its potential with MEC. They complement each other. MEC is the very foundational element that will allow 5G to live up to its potential.”
One of the key issues when talking about edge computing and MEC is to decide where is the edge. Debashish said: “The edge can be at multiple levels of the network. It depends on the use cases or the verticals. In ultra-reliable low-latency use cases, it makes sense for the edge to be defined as what we call the leaf of the network, the extreme edge. It’s not even eNodeB. It may not even be a small cell. It can be the user device itself.”
The initial use cases for MEC were about video content, but the focus is expanding, with enterprise use cases gaining prominence. “We think the initial adoption of MEC will be driven by enterprise customers to support some of their applications, such as industrial IoT, surveillance, covering sporting events, distributing content generated from those events,” Debashish noted.
This topic was discussed further on a recent webinar. Download the webinar.
