Market Driven Strategic Advisory EMERGING AND DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS 5G and Edge Computing Impact on Business Models, Service Providers, Datacenters, Applications, Business Users and Consumers https://mindcommerce.com/ Copyright 2019 ©Mind Commerce +1 206-395-9205 Market Driven Strategic Advisory EMERGING AND DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS Highlights and Findings • 5G Influence on Bandwidth and Data Economics: 5G will “reinvent” connectivity as there will be a very credible alternative to cable and fiber for business customers. 5G will bring about fundamental structural economic changes, such as significantly lower broadband pricing as a whole, and also much greater flexibility for enterprise, industrial, and government market segments in terms of how they connect public to private networks. • 5G Needs Edge Computing: LTE is improved with edge computing, but 5G absolutely requires it. In fact, without mobile edge computing, 5G would need to rely upon back-haul to centralized cloud resource for storage and computing, diminishing much of the otherwise positive impact of latency reduction enabled by 5G. • Mobile Edge Computing a Must for Private Wireless Networks: Enterprise and industrial segments will continue to deploy private networks utilizing LTE and WiFi. Many of these networks will evolve to 5G and include edge computing to maximize overall throughput and minimize latency, which will be crucial for certain critical communications solutions such as industrial process automation. • Combined 5G and Edge Solutions: A variety of enhanced services and new apps will be enabled, many of which will be directly or indirectly involved with smart cities, intelligent buildings, and smart homes and workplaces. Key 5G and MEC supported applications for business will be IoT connectivity, SMB/corporate mobility, and fixed wireless. • Carrier Network vs. Business On-site Models: Enterprise and industrial customers may choose a combination of communications and computing as a service from carriers or purchase infrastructure that is managed by a third-party entity. In contrast, carriers will own and control 5G and MEC infrastructure for the consumer segment, but dependent upon OTT providers to manage apps and services that market. • Consumer Services Monetization: There will be minimal direct business to consumer (B2C) offerings from carriers. Instead, carriers will be substantially reliant on third-party app and service developers. Rather than B2C, carriers will provide apps to consumers on a business to business to consumer (B2B2C) basis, as they will rely on OTT players to develop apps and offer services. Examples include Uber (transportation), Sony (gaming), and Netflix (streaming). • Business Services Monetization: For some applications and use cases, enterprise and industrial customers will require only connectivity and communications with the carrier (e.g., no computing) and may utilize their own computational infrastructure. In these scenarios, the enterprise or industrial customer will manage their own apps, or more likely, hire their own third-party team to manage on their behalf. • Security and Privacy Concerns: 5G and MEC infrastructure must operate in a manner in which security is ensured and privacy is protected. It is not the 5G network itself that is a security/privacy concern, but rather all of the things that 5G and MEC enabled equipment will facilitate that will amplify issues. https://mindcommerce.com/ Copyright 2019 ©Mind Commerce +1 206-395-9205 Market Driven Strategic Advisory EMERGING AND DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS Table of Contents Fifth Generation Wireless Wireless Edge Computing Why 5G Needs Edge Computing 5G Edge Computing Challenges and Opportunities Managing Simultaneous Communications and Computing Edge Computing Impact on Datacenters Managing Massive Amounts of Data Ensuring Security and Preserving Privacy Emerging 5G and Edge Computing Ecosystem 5G and Edge Computing Use Cases Summary and Conclusions Implementation and Operation Supply Chains and Partnerships Applications and Services Market Predictions Additional 5G and MEC Resources Multi Access Edge Computing LTE and 5G Apps and Services 6G Technology About the Author and Publisher https://mindcommerce.com/ Copyright 2019 ©Mind Commerce +1 206-395-9205 Market Driven Strategic Advisory EMERGING AND DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS Fifth Generation Wireless The fifth generation (5G) of cellular communications will bring about fundamental structural economic changes, such as significantly lower broadband pricing as a whole, and also much greater flexibility for enterprise, industrial, and government market segments in terms of how they connect public to private networks. Currently, there are well-defined existing networking access points based on availability of fiber and WiFi; 5G breaks this paradigm by providing a “virtual pipe” of bandwidth wherever and whenever needed. This results in both high bandwidth and low latency (e.g., less network throughput delays) for cellular applications and services. On the supply side, the cost-per-bit will plummet with 5G. This is because 5G is both more efficient than its predecessors and represents more competition to wired broadband solutions such as cable and fiber. Connectivity and transport cost structures will hasten their already downward trajectory as broadband communication options increase substantially. As with any supply and demand curve, increased supply (e.g., greater bandwidth availability at lower cost) translates into diminished end-user value perception. Most forms of telecommunications are highly elastic in economic terms, meaning that perceived value (and therefore pricing) of core services such as voice, text, and data will plummet due to 5G. With core service value diminishing, content and value-added applications will become most important for the consumer, and a solutions-oriented approach will become critical for enterprise, industrial, and government segments. On the demand side, consumer data usage will increase dramatically as expectations evolve to include ultra-high definition video, realistic gaming, virtual reality, and other bandwidth-hogging, latency- dependent apps. Business and government users will similarly increase data usage exponentially, but they will demand a solutions-driven approach to solve use-case-specific problems. Wireless Edge Computing The edge is a matter of perspective. In physical terms, the edge can be defined relative to location, such as computing occurring far away from centralized computing, hence the terms used in Internet of Things (IoT) of cloud computing (centralized) vs. fog computing (e.g. cloud computing at the edge). The edge may also be determined based on the client/customer. For example, the consumer may experience the edge in a personal and very close manner, such as using Amazon’s Alexa, which connects to the Cloud via WiFi access and uses the human voice as a command-based user interface. As with most everything within the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry, there is no shortage of acronyms. Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is a concept developed by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) that aims to bring computational power into Mobile RAN (radio access network) to promote virtualization of software at the radio edge. https://mindcommerce.com/ Copyright 2019 ©Mind Commerce +1 206-395-9205 Market Driven Strategic Advisory EMERGING AND DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS ETSI later re-termed “MEC” to refer to “Multi-access” Edge Computing to reflect that it may support non-cellular wireless such as WiFi as well as wired options. The intent of MEC is two-fold: (1) bring cloud-computing capabilities and an IT service environment to the edge of the telecom networks and (2) bring virtualized applications much closer to end-users as a means of ensuring network flexibility, economy and scalability. Why 5G Needs Edge Computing The entire cellular ecosystem is making big bets that 5G will be a worthwhile investment. Carriers have spent billions on spectrum for 5G and even more will go to new radio access network (RAN) equipment as well as core network infrastructure to support advanced communications capabilities. Mind Commerce research findings indicate a strong relationship between edge computing and 5G. In fact, if it were not for MEC, 5G would have to rely upon back-haul to centralized cloud resource for storage and computing, diminishing much of the otherwise positive impact of latency reduction enabled by 5G. MEC facilitates optimization of 5G network resources including focusing communications and computational capacity where it is needed the most. The top portion of the above figure represents business as usual, with all cloud-related da-ta routed through the telecom core to the centralized cloud. The bottom portion of the figure depicts MEC architecture with local processing and routing directly to the Internet. This system only routes data to the centralized cloud on an as-needed basis. MEC will bring many direct and indirect benefits to CSP networks as well as enhanced and new services. For example, Mind Commerce estimates that MEC is poised to make Content Delivery Networks (CDN) up to 40% more efficient for cellular Communications Service Providers (CSP). Cost savings will be shared between CSPs and CDN providers with the latter improving margins by up to 25%. https://mindcommerce.com/ Copyright 2019 ©Mind Commerce +1 206-395-9205 Market Driven Strategic Advisory EMERGING AND DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY