Minimizing Latency for 5G Multimedia and V2X Applications using Mobile Edge Computing

The densification of 5G deployments and Internet of Things (IoTs) are envisioned to generate data beyond the handling capacity of currently deployed networks. Moreover, the computations and storage on remote cloud servers which are typically situated far away from the end user bring in additional challenges of increased network latency and bottlenecked network bandwidths. Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is an emerging technology that provides cloud and IT services including computation, networking and storage closer to the mobile subscribers. Therefore, the key architectural change in 5G is of integrating MECs with the the local cellular base stations which can lower latency and improve throughput. This paper explores the feasibility of co-locating MEC with the base station, and evaluate the performance of two sample use-cases of multimedia applications and Vehicle-to-Vehicle/Infrastructure (V2X) using the commercial OPNET simulator. The results thus obtained demonstrate the adoption feasibility in the use-cases presented.