Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Continental and MobiledgeX demonstrate latency-optimized mobility services in latest edge computing trial

A major milestone for edge application adoption and performance is the ability to run seamlessly across multiple mobile network operator (MNO) edge networks. That’s previously been demonstrated by multiple operators across remote geographic regions. 

Now, MobiledgeX is showing this capability in live networks in the same geographic region in support of road safety and intelligent transportation. This video case study posted has the details of the work MobiledgeX is supporting for automotive leader Continental, Telefónica’s O2 and Deutsche Telekom, in association with the GSMA Telecom Edge Cloud initiative, to: 

• Provide edge-powered low latency and jitter for vehicular safety use cases involving multiple mobile users.
• Assure connectivity control between MNOs at the interconnects for low latency and jitter.
• Provide a single aggregated view of the edge footprint from different MNOs to ease the deployment of an app, managed from a single console by the developer.
• Promote privacy by processing sensitive customer data (e.g. user location) as close to the customer as possible and within national borders. 

In the video linked above, a driver and cyclist each subscribing to a different mobile operator approach an intersection in Frankfurt, Germany. A low latency connection to the edge network communicates each user’s real-time location, speed and direction of travel via the Continental application running constantly in the background. Ultimately, a warning alert about a potential collision is sent to each user. Another demonstration shows an alert delivered to a pedestrian about to cross paths with an autonomous vehicle in motion. In both cases, the mobile sessions take place across two distinct operators leveraging MobiledgeX’s Edge-Cloud cloud orchestrator.  

Two edge cloudlets were deployed in Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica O2’s live network data centers. The Continental app was then deployed in each edge, which have been interconnected in an industry-first achievement to deliver the low latency required by the real-time application.  This also demonstrates  stable and predictable low latency between cloudlets, and shows a secure, reliable, and managed connection over interconnected edge clouds. The setup guarantees optimized latency for application performance predictability on congested networks. 

Participant quotes: 

Dr. Snigdhayan Mahanta, Product Owner (Research & Advanced Engineering) Automotive Technologies, Continental

For Continental’s smart mobility solutions, it is critical to have low latency for safe and efficient operations on an edge compute infrastructure in real world scenarios. In this trial scenario, two road users approach an intersection simultaneously. The Continental algorithm runs on the backend and continuously computes the probability of a collision between the users and emits a timely warning, if necessary. We are excited to report a significant performance improvement in latency of the application. This is an important milestone for the delivery of intelligent transport services toward an autonomous mobility future.

Juan Carlos Garcia, SVP Technology Innovation & Ecosystems, Telefónica

The GSMA Telco Edge Cloud is a platform to expose, manage and market edge computing capabilities and services across different networks and boundaries. This joint trial is an exciting development because it represents an industry-first managed interconnection of the edge computing resources of two operators in one location for a specific use case.

Tilo Heckmann, Technology Strategy Manager, Telefónica Germany

We have deployed two edge cloudlets into the data centers of the live network of Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica O2 respectively. As an industry first, we have interconnected both cloudlets to achieve the best latency a network provider can offer.

Johannes Spring, Lead 5G Automotive Program, Deutsche Telekom & 5GAA Director General

When it comes to road safety and intelligent transportation services, low latency and low response times play a very important role. But first, the telco industry needs to do its homework.

Dominik Schnieders, Head of Edge Computing, Deutsche Telekom

We achieved these improvements by implementing a secure and reliable managed connection over the interconnected edge clouds. The setup guarantees an optimized latency that ensures predictability even in congested networks. A critical factor was the use of MobiledgeX’s software layer.

Thomas Vits, Product Management Consultant, MobiledgeX

Our mobile operator customers demand seamless operation and administration of their application environments. Our single management pane supports operation of applications on the mobile network edge. The MobiledgeX Edge-Cloud platform helps operators deploy their own mobile network edge cloud services and provides discovery capabilities to the applications on the device by means of the MobiledgeX client SDK to always connect to the optimal mobile network edge server at any given time. We are very proud to be the enabling platform for this trial and working hard with customers and partners to commercialize these solutions across industries.