5G, Edge Computing and Video Surveillance
5G is fast. But there is more to it.
5G promises peak data speeds of up to 10 Gbps – up to 10 times faster than the speeds offered by 4G. That means instead of waiting 3 minutes to download a movie on Netflix in 4G, it will take just 18 seconds on 5G. Just as the landlines are going out of the window, home broadband services will likely be a thing of the past.
Not just speed, but 5G will also ensure lower latency and greater capacity. Latency will go down below 1ms, compared to a typical 4G performance of 10-50ms. 5G networks will be able to serve a million devices per square KM.
There are cons associated with the technology. As the spectrum is different, huge investments in upgrading the current equipment need to be incurred by the telecom operators. The higher frequency spectrum and shorter wavelengths mean 5G signals have a fraction of the range of 4G. 5G requires a higher density of towers to cover the same area compared to 4G. We are talking of every lamp post, traffic light, etc. because even trees can block 5G signals. Naturally, users from urban areas will be the first benefactors. Clearly, it will not be cheap. On top of that, there is no final decision on health concerns regarding radiation from 5G. But today, we will not go deep on the problems with 5G and obstacles in the path as 5G is anyways coming, sooner than we think.
That sort of speed needs more power in the pocket, in comes Edge Computing.
In the last few years, the emergence of cloud computing has driven a centralized approach to system administration and operations. Centralization of resources at data centers of cloud service providers resulted in huge savings on CAPEX expenditures needed for on-premise data centers. However, cloud architecture gets challenged when computing servers and high-volume data sources are far away. In the case of applications where the latency caused due to data being transported to faraway data centers were acceptable, this architecture still delivers value. Data travel time from our smartphone to and from a cell tower of 12 to 15 milliseconds over 4G will drop to just 2 to 3 milliseconds on 5G. But the trip to and from distant data centers can still take a few hundred milliseconds or more. Here comes the need for more power at the edge.
When you combine the speed of 5G with edge computing’s processing capabilities, applications that require low latency and a whole world of services to take advantage of those applications will emerge. Early use cases tend to involve AR/VR, artificial intelligence, robotics, and driverless cars which require split-second decisions from computing resources. Then there is the potential of a variety of apps to benefit from both edge and 5G. For example, multi-player online gaming experiences will see another level of engagement, and gameplay will be enhanced when a part of the logic is processed at a common edge closer to the players.
The video surveillance industry as we know it will change.
Closer home, the video surveillance industry will also go through a revolution of sorts. Even the Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns in India are implementing city surveillance projects and the big question in every project is whether to go for a dedicated fiber network or bandwidth from ISP. Security surveillance systems need the highest level of availability, reliability, and speed which were not available from predecessors networks. 5G network undoubtedly is going to provide a much more reliable, high bandwidth, and low latency connectivity for remote video surveillance solutions as compared to 4G and even over a fiber-based network.
Add to that the possibility of processing AI-based analytics at the edge and storage of video data on the cloud resulting in a robust, smarter, and more intelligent video surveillance solution. New age cameras with higher in-built processing power will arrive with the capability to run edge based analytics that actually meaningfully work and not just are made for the datasheet. This will enable the video data to be processed at the edge and only filtered data to be transferred to the cloud and thus lowering cloud storage cost and improve bandwidth utilization efficiency.
An example use case to understand the benefit of edge computing and 5G will be to consider the easy deployment of 5G video surveillance cameras now possible at a place where high footfall is expected eg. a rock concert venue or examination hall or at a sports event or an event attracting a huge number of tourists. Deployment of cameras can be done in a much shorter period without the problems of running huge lengths of network cables. AI-based face recognition can be used to provide automated access to individuals inside a premise or else generate an alarm based on their authorization level. Behavioral analytics can also help understand people’s actions, skin color, voice, emotions, clothing, and more to analyze human behavior from live video feeds and match it with predefined suspicious behavior data to identify offenders in real-time This can drastically reduce the requirement of deploying a large number of physical security personals in these zones.
Let’s get ready to witness a new era in the physical security sector with many such applications across manufacturing, retail, healthcare, hospitality, smart homes, etc. now looking far more effective and feasible.
