With the addition of Charlotte, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis, Verizon and AWS announced yesterday that mobile edge computing will be available in 30% of US metro areas.

Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength, a real-time cloud computing platform, extends Amazon Web Services’ compute and storage services to Verizon’s wireless network’s edge. The combination reduces latency and network hops while connecting from a platform-hosted application to the end user’s device.

It was first released in August 2020, and it now has 17 locations in the United States that offer mobile edge computing via AWS Wavelength Zones. Developers and organizations may use 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength to build and deploy a number of applications, including machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), and video and gaming streaming.

Fermata Energy, a Verizon Ventures company, and Easy Aerial were among the innovators who took part in the 5G Studio, a Verizon and Newlab collaboration to create transformative technology solutions based on Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network technology and Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength at Newlab.

Easy Aerial is a top provider of autonomous drone-in-a-box-based monitoring and inspection systems for commercial, government, and military applications that are built in the United States.

Easy Aerial was able to collect and transfer live drone video for near real-time object detection and telemetry data for fast processing and analysis because of the reduced end-to-end latency allowed by Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength.

5G and mobile edge computing also enabled pricey compute to be removed from the drone, reducing drone prices by 10% and improving flying time by 40%, according to reports.

“Being able to utilize the high bandwidth for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength provides is a game changer,” said Ivan Stamatovski, CTO of Easy Aerial. “It shifts the paradigm on what is possible to achieve with airborne sensors by processing data at the edge of the network in near real-time.”

By discharging energy services from EV batteries to the home, building, or energy grid, Fermata Energy’s Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology transforms electric vehicles (EVs) into small power plants.

Fermata Energy’s cloud-based software, which was running on Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength, reacted to changes in the grid and, as a consequence, load-balance data in near real-time with very low latency, using a bidirectional charger connected both to an EV and a building’s energy load. This enables Fermata Energy to dispatch an EV as a valued energy resource that responds to grid conditions in near real-time.

Verizon and AWS are also collaborating with Couchbase and Confluent, two software as a service (SaaS) companies, to make it easier for developers to design apps that run on Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength.

Verizon and AWS smoothly expanded their capabilities to the edge using infrastructure templates, automating the complexity of edge networking, core compute, and the program itself.

Couchbase is a high-performance, versatile, and scalable contemporary database that operates across the data center and any cloud, enabling developers to build, deploy and run their most mission-critical applications.

Verizon and AWS are collaborating with Couchbase to enable native data storage and processing at the network edge at high performance and scale.

Confluent’s data in motion platform enables businesses to link and process real-time data across multi-cloud and hybrid environments, enabling new IoT analytics and apps to be developed.

“Using Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength and Confluent, our joint customers are able to build real-time IoT connections with ultra-low latency. This allows organizations to intelligently respond to events happening essentially in real-time as they deploy more 5G-enabled devices across their organizations to power next-generation digital experiences and business processes,” said Gerry Fierling, Sr. Director, Global AWS Alliance, Confluent.

Verizon also gives developers the 5G Edge Discovery Service, which finds the best mobile edge compute site for any Verizon mobile client, making it simple to integrate the complete 5G Edge footprint into mobile applications. The Edge Discovery Service is available on the 5G Edge developer portal, along with a broader set of APIs.

“Through our continued collaboration with AWS, we’re helping developers and businesses in every industry create truly transformational applications for use cases such as immersive VR gaming, video distribution, and connected and autonomous vehicles,” said Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business. “By expanding our 5G Edge locations across the U.S., we’re enabling developers to quickly and easily build apps and services that take advantage of the low latency, massive bandwidth and strong reliability of 5G and edge computing.”

“Customers that want to build ultra-low latency applications need access to compute, storage, and advanced cloud services at the edge of the 5G network. They tell us that broad coverage is very important to ensure consistent application experiences, wherever their end-users may be,” said George Elissaios, general manager of AWS Wavelength and Director of Product Management, AWS. “With the continued and rapid expansion of AWS Wavelength Zones across the US and around the world, we are delivering on that, while also broadening access to advanced 5G and edge capabilities to every AWS customer, small or large. We’re excited to see the innovation that customers like Easy Ariel and Fermata Energy bring with novel applications that transform consumers’ experiences by leveraging AWS Wavelength on Verizon 5G Edge.”

Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength is now available in 17 locations: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington, DC.