Wednesday, July 22, 2020

American Tower Activates New Edge Computing Center

Collocation is among the potential roles and revenue streams for edge computing, with cell tower owners, telcos, retailers, modular building and others seeking roles.  Colo Atl, a subsidiary of American Tower, for example, has activated a new edge data center in Atlanta, located in the Ben Hill, GA area, approximately 10 miles southwest of downtown Atlanta.


American Tower Edge offers edge data centers at the base of cell towers in six cities including Atlanta, Jacksonville, Denver, Boulder, Austin and Pittsburgh.


By some estimates, most of the link latency happens in the access network from device to cell tower, so placing a data center at the base of a tower eliminates the greatest source of link latency between an end user device and a computing resource. 


source: Vertical Bridge


The issue is the business model, as it might not make sense to put an edge computing center at the base of every cell tower. Many believe siting an edge data center somewhere “within a metro” is generally applicable, as ultra-low-latency apps will be supported by premises edge computing or “onboard the device” computing. 


An interconnection and colocation facility, the new data center is said to offer customers an alternative location to the centralized metro data centers in the metro area.


he purpose-built 360-square-foot, 100 KW facility provides eight customer cabinets, consisting of twenty quarter-cabinet lockers and three full cabinets. The connectivity enabled, multitenant, neutral-host edge data center maximizes flexibility and is directly connected via dark fiber to Colo Atl, the company says. 


SBA Communications operates SBA Edge, while Crown Castle is partnering with edge specialist Vapor IO to build a national network of edge computing sites. 


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