Multi-Access Edge Computing: An Overview and Latency Evaluation

Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) is one of the key emerging technologies currently being deployed by mobile network operators. By introducing cloud application capabilities close to end-users, MEC enables a range of new use cases, in particular those with real-time requirements. This is possible because of low network latency of MEC compared with traditional cloud services. In this paper we evaluate the network latency of one service running in a MEC-like environment and compare it with the latency of the same service running in two geographically different cloud locations. Our goal was to quantify MEC latency, as one of the most important benefits of MEC. The results show an essential advantage of MEC over cloud computing, which makes it a promising technology for real-time services and beyond.