P-RAN, a Fog Computing Platform for 5G and 6G Services

With the success of cloud computing, expectations on edge and fog computing have been high. Unfortunately, progress has been below expectations with only limited success in vertical industries due to cost and privacy concerns. New use cases and architectures are needed. As a promising technology, device-to-device (D2D) communication has been in development for years. However, the use of D2D among smartphones is still limited despite the efforts. In this article, the integration of D2D technology, cellular network, and blockchain is explored to gain a synergy for commercial fog computing that addresses the cost and privacy concerns. Based on the idea of Proximity Radio Access Network (P-RAN), China Telecom has launched D2D-based services with a commercial platform to offer a wide range of proximity services. Besides, the blockchain-enabled P-RAN service platform is also being promoted and applied. With the availability of this commercial platform, this article discusses the possibility of offering fog-computing based services for a possible large-scale commercial realization. Both technical and business aspects are explored to make the case for this proposal. Finally, two use cases are proposed and the numerical analysis is carried out.