No Jitter Roll: Private 5G Advances, Teams Integrations

In this week’s No Jitter Roll, we share updates surrounding enterprise 5G edge services, Microsoft Teams integrations, a work-from-home VPN service, video collaboration room system monitoring, and a Zoom certification.

 

To offset latency issues, Verizon this week announced that it has teamed with Microsoft to deliver 5G edge computing for enterprises. The collaboration combines Microsoft’s Azure cloud and edge capabilities with Verizon’s on-site 5G Edge mobile edge computing (MEC) platform.

 

Ice Mobility, a logistics and supply chain company, is testing Verizon’s 5G MEC integrated with Azure to help with computer vision-assisted product packing as well as to automate and improve its quality control process. The goal is to improve on-site quality assurance and save 15-30% on processing time. “We’re able to do this by installing a high-definition camera above every one of our pick lines,” Mike Mohr, CEO of Ice Mobility, said. “It literally eliminates quality controls, but even more importantly, increases accuracy,” he added.

 

Separately, Verizon unveiled a Private 5G global service with general availability in Europe. Though we can anticipate U.S. plans for Private 5G, at the moment, Verizon’s sole focus is in the International market, a company spokesman said.

 

In other 5G edge news this week, Cradlepoint, a wireless network edge solutions provider, announced that Taylor Construction, a home improvement company in Australia, has completed its trial with Telstra’s enterprise wireless offering and Cradlepoint’s NetCloud service, delivered through a Cradlepoint E3000 5G-optimized router with a W2005 5G wideband adapter, and is now using the service in production. After beginning the trial in February, Taylor Construction has the WAN speeds and coverage it needs — including 20 times the performance of its 4G connection — to support a range of bandwidth and latency-sensitive connected devices and applications at its construction sites, Cradlepoint said in a prepared statement.

 

A variety of vendors this week introduced certified products and integrations for Microsoft Teams. Here they are:

 

 

Comcast Business this week announced general availability for its Comcast Business Teleworker VPN service, which enables enterprises to grant work-from-home employees access to their corporate network just as they would from the office. This remote access VPN solution, which IT can manage centrally, can integrate with Comcast Business connectivity services or existing underlay to deliver a secure, reliable connection, Comcast said. To deliver the service, Comcast Business uses the Aruba ESP cloud-native edge platform.

 

UC monitoring and analytics provider Vyopta this week announced availability of an integration with Overture, an A/V remote monitoring and management solution from Barco. The integration combines data from the Vyopta and Barco monitoring software to provide A/V and IT teams single pane of glass visibility into the performance of room collaboration systems. to Admins can get details on calls, virtual meeting records, and quality, beyond the physical device connection status, Vyopta said. The integration delivers alarms on UC and room issues, as well as combined reports, Vyopta added.

 

UC device vendor Yamaha this week revealed that its YVC-330 portable USB and Bluetooth speakerphone is certified for use with Zoom. Once they’ve updated their speakerphones with the Zoom Rooms-compatible firmware, users will be able to connect and control audio directly from the Zoom interface, Yamaha said. The firmware will be provided for free starting in the first half of 2021, the company said. Yamaha is among a variety of Zoom ecosystem partners that have announced new products or updates around Zoomtopia, the user and partner conference Zoom hosted last week (see related story).