Rethinking the mobile edge for vehicular services

The growing connected car market requires mobile network operators (MNOs) to rethink their network architecture to deliver ultra-reliable low-latency communications. In response, Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) has emerged as a solution, enabling the deployment of computing resources at the network edge. For MNOs to tap into the potential benefits of MEC, they need to transform their networks accordingly. Consequently, the primary objective of this study is to design a realistic MEC architecture and corresponding optimal deployment strategy - deciding on the placement and configuration of computing resources - as opposed to prior studies focusing on MEC run-time management and orchestration (e.g., service placement, computation offloading, and user allocation). To cater to the heterogeneous demands of vehicular services, we propose a multi-tier MEC architecture aligned with 5G and Beyond-5G radio access network deployments. Therefore, we frame MEC deployment as an optimization problem within this architecture, assuming 3 MEC tiers. Our data-driven evaluation, grounded in realistic assumptions about network architecture, usage, latency, and cost models, relies on datasets from a major MNO in the UK. We show the benefits of adopting a 3-tier MEC architecture over single-tier (centralized or distributed) architectures for heterogeneous vehicular services, in terms of deployment cost, energy consumption, and robustness.