FEATURE
U
CURRENTLY,
NETWORKS FACE
A MULTITUDE
OF CHALLENGES
AS THE
POTENTIAL FOR
5G CONTINUES
TO EXPAND
WITH MORE
NEW USE CASES,
APPLICATIONS
AND DEVICES
EVOLVING AS 5G
IS REALISED.
Unprecedented levels of productivity,
cost savings and new experiences are
the promises of 5G that have been long
anticipated to revolutionise the way
people, businesses and our modern
economy thrives. New network use
cases such as connected cars, Artificial
Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR),
Augmented Reality (AR) and the explosion
of billions of Internet of Things (IoT)
devices are building an ecosystem of
entirely new possibilities with the support
of 5G. By 2035, 5G will support the
production of up to £9.3 trillion worth
of goods and services according to
Qualcomm. As Communication Service
Providers (CSPs) grow their revenue
streams through 5G, they could address
US$700 billion of 5G-enabled businessto-business
value by 2030 according to
Ericsson. To achieve this, CSPs must invest
in their 5G infrastructure to deliver a
faster, more reliable network that provides
lower latency 5G connectivity.
The 5G promise
Currently, networks face a multitude of
challenges as the potential for 5G continues
to expand with more new use cases,
applications and devices evolving as 5G is
realised. With the first 5G networks already
being deployed, there is close attention
on the technologies and its capabilities to
deliver high-performing 5G connectivity to
increasing numbers of applications.
Increased reliability, faster speeds and
lower latency are the 5G performance
promises which must be delivered to enable
connected cars and IoT devices to perform.
This cannot be made possible without a
network infrastructure that can handle the
increasing pressure of more devices and
more data – without compromising on
availability, speed and capacity.
As 5G infrastructure is deployed and endusers
demand more connectivity, there
is the challenge to manage increasing
demands for data. Integral to this
infrastructure are more than 7,500 data
centres worldwide which process more
than 1.7 megabytes of new data every
second. With volumes of data constantly
increasing, there is more demand on 5G
networks to deliver high-speed at low
latency than ever before. With critical
applications relying on this performance
such as connected cars and healthcare
applications, the consequences of latency
and slow connectivity are high.
Step closer to 5G
To sustain growing 5G demand, various
players in the industry like network
operators, content providers and industrial
verticals are investing in the infrastructure
to support the demands of 5G applications
which deliver low latency and reliable
connectivity. In order to achieve this, they
are investigating in deploying Edge Data
Centres (EDCs) to process data closer to
the generation and consumption of data.
EDCs form part of the critical
infrastructure behind 5G which enables
applications such as Industrial IoT (IIoT)
or Augmented and Virtual Reality, all of
which require real-time network response.
EDCs tend to be smaller than normal
data centres which means they can be
deployed close to the end-user and can be
installed in a small shelter or a container
tailored to remote locations to only name
a few options. By using EDCs, networks
can provide local services to help redirect
traffic away from the carrier metro
networks to local networks, making better
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