Telefónica Validates Integration of Network APIs with Pilot AWS Wavelength Zone

Telefónica validated the integration of their network application programming interfaces (APIs) with the Pilot AWS Wavelength Zone in a Telefónica Edge location in Madrid in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide developers the ability to combine AWS edge services with quality on demand (QoD) specialized services from Telefónica. 

The collaboration allows developers to build next-generation, network-aware applications in a frictionless way. Telefónica is launching an Early Adopter Program to empower the developer community to carry out a first integration and validation of services based on network APIs. Cinfo’s Tiivii product, a real time AI-based cloud production for sports and music, was selected as the partner for the demonstration.

Companies that are building next-generation applications that are quality of service (QoS) sensitive such as augmented reality, virtual reality, live event production, gaming, artificial intelligence- machine learning inference at the edge face major hurdles in enabling the experience for their users. These emerging experiences require low latency, high bandwidth, which requires substantial effort from the customers to manage multiple aspects (e.g., placement to the closest multi-access edge compute and enabled enhanced QoS).

Telefónica and AWS worked with Cinfo, a Spanish startup that enables live production and streaming of events, to test network QoD with AWS Wavelength. Cinfo’s TiiVii solution, a cloud-based automated video production service powered by artificial intelligence, is highly sensitive to connectivity quality parameters such as latency and jitter, as it needs to send more than 50 commands per second to each camera in a venue and must make automated decisions in milliseconds such as moving and panning of the camera. In the Pilot, an AWS Wavelength Zone together with Telefónica’s 5G enhanced connectivity enabled Cinfo to provide its Tiivii service to the Madrid Volleyball Federation event. The cameras at the event streamed a live video over Telefónica’s 5G network with the configured enhanced connectivity to the Pilot AWS Wavelength Zone, reducing the deployment time of the application to minutes. The output stream of the Tiivii service, as compared to regular deployment, provided a superior viewing experience on live streaming by reducing the frozen frames and allowing viewers to seamlessly follow the play by enabling Cinfo’s artificial intelligent control commands to cameras on time as required. This test solution reduced latency by ~20 milliseconds and jitter by ~90% during cell congestion, which is critical for a consistent user experience.

The validation of this integration has been made possible by an agreement between Telefónica Tech Cyber Security and Cloud and AWS to jointly deploy the Pilot AWS Wavelength Zone in Madrid. This allows for companies to easily test use cases that require low latency, which is provided by the integration of AWS compute and storage services in facilities at the edge of Telefónica Network. Other applications envisaged range from connected cars to smart devices and any other application that requires minimum response times. Tests can be made without the need of heavy-upfront investments.

This project comes from the GSMA initiative Open Gateway, a global partnership across heterogenous telco operators to address industry network API interoperability. The API standardization, under CAMARA project, helps developers access network capabilities, regardless of a customer’s network, allowing applications to run consistently between telco networks and different countries.