STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Vodafone Inc said on Wednesday it has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch “advanced computing” services for its business customers in the United Kingdom.
Edge Computing uses augmented reality and machine learning to analyze collected data as it has been collected — whether on the factory floor, on an oil rig, or in the office space — before it is transmitted to remote servers in the cloud. To work, it needs fast data transfers of the kind that 5G provides.
The launch follows Vodafone’s tests with companies in a variety of areas, including sports technology, autonomous transportation, biometric security, remote virtual reality and factory automation.
Vodafone said that under ideal conditions, latency – the time it takes data to travel between two points – could be as low as 10ms, compared to an average of 75ms for 4G.
“It’s a combination (Edge Compute and 5G) that no other service provider can offer in Europe, which means we can offer something unique to our customers,” said Ann Sheehan, Vodafone’s UK business director.
The company will initially offer low-latency “edge computing” services to customers in and around London, as well as towns and cities including Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and Cardiff.
Customers in the Scotland and Northern England regions will receive service in 2022. AWS has “high-end” services in Tokyo, Daejeon, South Korea, and 10 cities in the United States.
(Reportagem de Subantha Mukherjee)
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