AT&T Is Getting Edge-y

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Although details have not yet been released, AT&T VP of integrated planning and program management, Alicia Abella, said that AT&T is poised to begin testing edge computing applications, reports LightReading.com.  The company’s Foundry test center located in Plano, Texas will be tapped to analyze various vertical industries.

Combining edge computing with 5G technology would change data transmission speeds and could open up new business opportunities.  

AT&T, for example has been meeting with cloud-based gaming heavyweight, GridRaster. Under an edge computing arrangement, relaying data through local sources would shave off milliseconds in response time.  In the online gaming world, this difference could be significant. Favoring local data centers over large hubs hundreds of miles away would also have an impact on advertising. Not only would that new game run super fast, it could also show the user an ad tailored to the user’s physical location.

Industry leaders that met recently to ponder edge computing possibilities discussed many areas for expansion. AT&T’s Abella, for example, suggested that drones could reach rescue sites sooner. Rene Haas, president of ARM’s IP products group pondered the benefit to self driving cars.The split second improvement in differentiating a jogger from a bicycle could be critical, he noted. Adding his thoughts, IBM’s telecom VP and CTO said, “We see this as a fundamental shift from where computing is going to happen.”  Comments? Email Us.

February 22, 2019

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