EDGE CENTRES under one big umbrella .” “ Just look at what we did in Bright .”
THE FUTURE OF THE EDGE
Bright , Victoria Bright , a town located three and a half hours north of Melbourne , is home to around 2,400 residents and is serviced by a single cellular tower . The town is officially considered not to be a connectivity blackspot , as its tower provides sufficient cellular coverage for its residents .
However , Bright ’ s status as a popular base for exploring the peaks of Mount Buffalo National Park and Alpine National Park as well as Mount Hotham , a popular ski resort , means that , on weekends and holidays , its population can swell by 15,000 overnight . This places undue strain on the area ’ s cellular coverage , and leads to frequent outages
The edge is still a technology in its earliest stages and , if we ’ re going to realise its potential , there are some steps that need to be taken .
Edge 1.0 : Fix the Internet Edge 2.0 : Deliver OTT content through edge sites and networks Edge 3.0 : Deliver on the Promise of 5G Edge 4.0 : Realise the Potential of the Edge
“ The idea is that the four stages of edge begin with Edge 1.0 , which means fixing the internet . Making connectivity stable , fast , accessible , you name it , and doing that everywhere ,” says Eaves . Then , Edge 2.0 is about realising the potential of the OTT providers , migrating that content , those telematics , and everything to the edge . Edge 3.0 is integrating 5G as the universal connectivity standard . And then Edge 4.0 is using the fact that all those other problems have been fixed to build some real applications that fully utilise the power of what Edge can do .”
According to Eaves , “ There ' s not a country in the world that ' s not struggling with Edge 1.0 right now . I was in Monaco recently . One of the richest places in the world and I struggled to even get a steady 3G connection . So , step one pretty much everywhere is to fix the internet .” datacentremagazine . com 45