Verizon takes initial step toward providing mobile edge-compute solution for enterprises, public safety

Verizon recently announced the first deployment of its Mobile Onsite Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) vehicle that is designed to deliver mobile edge compute (MEC) and private-network connectivity to an enterprise location, but officials for the carrier giant have noted potential public-safety use cases that could be met with the solution in the future.

Developed with multiple partners, the Mobile Onsite NaaS solution is a 10-foot portable trailer with dual-core network capabilities for 4G and 5G with data-center-like edge compute that was initially deployed a Lockheed Martin’s campus in Waterton, Colo., according to a Verizon press release on the matter.

But the potential value of such an edge-compute solution also could support many public-safety applications that could prove to be valuable to public-safety agencies responding to emergencies, according to Carlo Thompson, a distinguished engineer of system architecture for Verizon.

One such use case would be supporting the transport and processing of video from drones in near real time locally, instead of the most common methods that often are fraught with delays–and the potential of functional failures, if connectivity to a central computing resource is not working properly.

“You have an SD card that’s stuck in your controller,” Thompson said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “You take that the SD card now, and you go back to your hotel room and whatever Wi -Fi or Internet, you have you try to upload that to some cloud somewhere to stitch it together.

“What we’re trying to do is expedite that or just explore expediting that and then bring that processing engine locally and then be able to process that imagery locally and then send that processed image over satellite versus having to wait.”

Edge compute also could impact the practical use of artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge of networks, according to Thompson.

“There’s AI security,” he said. “We could have cameras … connected wirelessly going back to some sort of edge compute that has AI detection [that] could detect weapons.

“The use cases are all there when you talk about low latency and having things processed for quick response. [The challenge is] just how do we get that private MEC or that compute closer to the user, and that’s kind of what this vehicle is supposed to do.”

Although Thompson readily acknowledges the potential benefits of edge computing for numerous public-safety applications, he notes that the Mobile Onsite NaaS is not yet available commercially and has not been optimized for first-responder use.

Indeed, the current Mobile Onsite NaaS solution require some support from Verizon, so it is not yet practical as a tool for the first wave of responders to an incident site. However, Verizon engineers plan to work on the solution in hopes of providing robust edge-compute solutions in multiple form factors that are intuitive enough that public safety can deploy them quickly and appropriately at a scene—something that promised to take considerable time and effort, Thompson said.

“We call it the easy button,” Thompson said. “But the easy button is hard [to develop].”

Such an “easy button” is available in numerous solutions that are available from Verizon Frontline to address foundational connectivity, Thompson said. But there are growing indications that the desire for data-center-like computing power at the edge of a network is going to increase within the public-safety community, he said.

“In a lot of circumstance, typical [Verizon] Frontline assets are going to work, because all you need is connectivity back and you’re able to set up,” Thompson said.

“But in certain circumstances where you have safety issues and things of that nature, or you have speed things up that you need to think about like, ‘How fast can I map this area?’ those are where this edge-based asset comes into play, because you’re bringing cloud with you. You’re bringing this edge compute with you to process all of those things in low latency or to do that activity in low latency, so that you could be out of harm’s way or you could get your information quicker, faster, better.”