ETSI to launch ‘edge sandbox’

As its multi-access edge computing (MEC) group reaches 100 members, European standards group ETSI announced that it is setting up an ‘edge’ sandbox to attract developers.

The online edge emulation environment will allow application developers to experiment with ETSI’s standardised MEC Service APIs in virtual city and indoor network environments.

The sandbox will demonstrate the interactions between MEC services, edge applications, the end-users and access networks, including 3GPP LTE/5G and WLAN.  The first release will be available online later this year.

Member milestone

ETSI also noted that Mitsubishi Electric R&D Centre Europe has become the 100th member of the Multi-access Edge Computing Industry Specification Group (ISG). ETSI said the membership milestone confirmed the “attractiveness” of what is one of its most dynamic groups.

“Our R&D activities on communications cover five main areas: automotive, factory automation, railway, satellite and access networks. Edge computing is an important tool for most of them,” said Loïc Brunel, Mitsubishi Electric R&D Centre Europe.

“ETSI MEC was the first initiative focused solely on edge computing and which provides the globally applicable API specifications required by the market, evolving from multi-edge computing to multi-access edge computing. It is an essential group for the specification of what the industry needs for edge computing,”

Strategy Analytics predicts that 59% of all IoT deployments will be processing data using edge computing of some form by 2025.