Verizon and AWS Deliver Mobile Edge Computing to Customers in Boston and the Bay Area

A joint message from Tami Erwin, CEO, Verizon Business and Matt Garman, VP Sales and Marketing, AWS

Less than a year after Hans Vestberg, Verizon CEO, and Andy Jassy, AWS CEO, took the stage in Las Vegas at AWS re:Invent, we’re excited to share that 5G mobile edge compute is live for developers, with AWS Wavelength at Verizon’s 5G Edge in Boston and the Bay Area. Starting today, developers and enterprises around the world can harness the power of innovation to build entirely new categories of applications for the edge. And we’re not done yet. Verizon has committed to launching 5G Edge in more cities by the end of 2020.

AWS Wavelength embeds AWS compute and storage services at Verizon’s 5G Edge to enable applications with ultra-low latencies, and support use cases such as inference at the edge, autonomous industrial equipment, connected cars, smart cities and smart factories, Internet of Things (IoT), and live and interactive video and game streaming. Verizon is the first in the world to partner with AWS to offer 5G network edge computing with AWS Wavelength.

From a technical perspective, Wavelength extends AWS infrastructure to Verizon’s networks by embedding AWS compute and storage services at service access points on the edge of the 5G network. This enables traffic to reach application servers running in Wavelength Zones without leaving the mobile network, reducing the latency that would result from multiple hops to the Internet, and helping developers start to unlock the potential of 5G for their applications.

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And getting started is easy. With just an AWS account, you can deploy your 5G applications in Wavelength Zones and seamlessly connect to applications and services in AWS Regions. Wavelength offers you the flexibility to scale up or scale down, and pay only for the resources that you use. Simply log-in to the AWS Management Console, request access at https://aws.amazon.com/wavelength/, and enable the Wavelength Zones you want to use for your account.

Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network is built for transformative experiences that can improve how we live, work and play. For example, 5G Ultra Wideband enables throughput that will be at least 10 times faster than 4G–up to ten gigabits per second; delivers ultra-low latency; offers very high bandwidth, with 100 times larger data volumes than 4G; and the ability to connect more than a million devices per kilometer.

We’re already seeing customers innovating in industries as varied as healthcare and sports. For example, Avesha is working with several hospitals to test how machine learning inference done at the edge utilizing Wavelength and Verizon 5G can assist doctors in identifying polyps in real-time. Now, instead of running on premises servers with their high expense, hospitals can use the power of the cloud with GPUs available over 5G for ultra-low latency inference of video streams. Traditionally, machine learning inference required having a dedicated server with a GPU in the procedure room. But now, the Avesha platform is able to connect the procedure room with the inference models on high-performance GPUs at the cloud edge and the cloud backend that continuously updates the models, resulting in high accuracy and inferencing speed.

”Identifying cancerous polyps is difficult. Machine learning inference is an invaluable tool to help physicians make that diagnosis, but it requires near-real time analysis, comparing a live video feed to a dataset of several hundred thousand polyps,” said Raj Nair, acting CEO of Avesha. “AWS Wavelength on Verizon’s 5G Edge provides that intelligence to doctors during the exam improving the patient experience and potential outcomes, and fundamentally changing the diagnostic process.”

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In the world of sports, ShotTracker is testing how its sensor-based technology can transform the game of basketball when computing is done at the 5G Edge. Its system delivers more than 70 unique and autonomous basketball stats and requires millisecond latency to provide teams, broadcasters and game partners with instant analytics. 5G and MEC will speed up the process and allow ShotTracker to layer more data, stats and analysis — in real time — for teams, broadcasters and fans. 5G provides the super-fast network connection and the ability to collect even more data from even more sensors, and compute at the edge means that data, and things like comparative stats can be available at the edge so analysis is near-instantaneous.

”In sports, seconds matter – it can be the difference between winning and losing – that’s why we are excited about the potential of ultra-low latency provided by AWS Wavelength and Verizon 5G Edge,” said Davyeon Ross, co-founder and president of ShotTracker. “Access to 5G and Edge compute unlocks unprecedented speeds and data access that will revolutionize how our data is consumed.”

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