Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Outposts, announced earlier this year, is now available to U.S. enterprise customers. The offering is designed to be deployed at the customer premises.
As companies grow their communications infrastructures, they increasingly are looking for low-latency solutions for the network edge to support robotics, factory automation, intelligent logistics and other real-time enterprise applications.
Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Outposts may be combined with Verizon’s On Site 5G offering, announced earlier this year in the U.S., which is a private 5G network offering that uses the company’s high-speed Ultra Wideband spectrum.
Corning Inc. is currently using Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Outposts and On Site 5G to enhance innovation at one of the world’s largest fiber-optic cable plants, experimenting with high-speed, high-volume data collection on the factory floor, quality assurance and on-premises inference using machine learning.
An increasing number of other companies are in the early stages of collecting data on the factory floor, using IoT and other devices to monitor the operation of machines, as well as their output as a way to know when maintenance or more extensive repair is likely to be needed. This enables companies to repair equipment during slow times rather than waiting until a machine fails.
Verizon and AWS have partnered together before on edge computing. Verizon has also worked with Microsoft on similar solutions.
“By bringing compute and storage services to the edge of the network on the customer premises, we’re providing enterprises with the low lag and high bandwidth needed to process information in near real time so they can gain actionable data-driven insights and optimize their operations,” said Tami Erwin, Verizon Business CEO, in a prepared statement. “Through our partnership with AWS, we are helping customers unlock the true potential of 5G and edge computing which together will enable innovative applications involving computer vision, augmented and virtual reality, and machine learning. We are just scraping the surface of the new experiences that will be enabled by having 5G and edge compute on site.”
Joan Engebretson contributed to this report.