Six carriers came together in January to create the 5G Future Forum with the aim of developing interoperable 5G specifications across the globe. Now, the founding carriers — Verizon, América Móvil, KT, Rogers, Telstra and Vodafone — have released their first two technical specifications, which are related to multi-access edge computing (MEC).
The MEC Experience Management technical specification defines a set of intent-based APIs for functional exposure of edge and workload discovery. And the MEC Deployment technical specification enables hyperscale cloud providers and telco service providers to deploy and integrate global MEC physical frameworks, including facilities functions such as power and cooling, monitoring, operational considerations, and security.
The 5G Future Forum is focusing on the creation of uniform interoperability specifications, which will help developers create 5G and MEC applications. The group will also share global best practices in technology deployment. And they say they will develop public and private marketplaces.
“Through our collaboration, new global specifications will allow us to offer services that work consistently across world markets and support devices moving between countries,” states the Forum.
“The 5G Future Forum was set up to unlock the full potential of 5G and MEC applications and solutions around the globe,” said Rima Qureshi, chief strategy officer at Verizon. “The release of these first specifications marks a major step forward in helping companies around the world create a seamless global experience for their customers.”
“The release of the first specification and whitepaper of 5G Future Forum ushers in a practical approach to put MEC solutions into the market,” said Hongbeom Jeon, chief DX officer at KT.”
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In addition to working on the first two technical specifications, over the past six months, the forum’s founding members have also been working to create the governance structure for the group.