Last Tuesday, Verizon announced that it would be partnering with Microsoft to offer an on-premises private edge compute solution for businesses. It will include integrating Verizon’s 5G Edge to Microsoft Azure Stack Edge as well as additional features, like Verizon’s ThingSpace IoT platform, data and video ingestion services, and network security, depending on enterprise requirements.
Verizon 5G Edge is a multi-access edge computing (MEC) platform that connects the carrier’s network with Wavelength and Stack Edge. Together with Microsoft Azure Stack Edge, it offers compute and storage capabilities to customers’ premises at the network’s edge. As a result, businesses benefit from enhanced efficiency, increased security, and the low lag and high bandwidth required for computer vision, augmented and virtual reality, and machine learning applications.
Verizon’s 5G Edge network works in tandem with Verizon’s On-Site 5G solution, which was released in June for business and public sector customers, and provides 5G network equipment such as small cells, packet core, and radios on-premises. The On-Site 5G offering is the first private wireless solution to provide a high-band millimeter wave spectrum, which has been instrumental in expanding Verizon’s Ultra Wideband network.
According to Sampath Sowmyanarayan, chief revenue officer of Verizon Business, the partnership with Microsoft brings 5G Edge to enterprises, dropping latency at the Edge, helping critical, performance-impacting applications respond more quickly and efficiently.
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As per Verizon’s official statement, Retailers can analyze data in near real-time using On-Site 5G and edge computing to get actionable data-driven insights, improve inventory accuracy, and power quick and flexible supply chains. Manufacturers can improve asset performance, streamline operations, reduce downtime, and get end-to-end insight across all processes to make quicker, more informed choices. All of this is feasible thanks to data analytics provided by apps running on the local edge computing infrastructure.
Ice Mobility, a supply chain and logistics services company that serves Verizon and all of the carrier’s retail partners, was an early adopter of Verizon’s Microsoft Azure private 5G edge. As a way to improve on-site quality assurance, Ice Mobility is utilizing the solution to facilitate computer vision-backed product packing.
Ice Mobility intends to expand its use of Verizon and Microsoft’s integrated technologies by exploring 5G applications that rely on early computer vision and 5G Edge investments to deliver concrete, practical automation benefits like near real-time activity-based costing.
This solution would enable them to allocate overhead and indirect costs to specific customer accounts, pick and pack lines, and warehouse activities in order to increase efficiency and competitiveness.
