(EDGE 2021) On the 5G Edge Network Challenges of Providing Tactile & Multi-modality Communication Services

Abstract: Tactile & multi-modality communication, or TACMM, is a type of advanced interactive service that is currently being studied in the 3GPP 5G SA working group. With the objective of achieving economical communication overhead, ultra-low latency, high reliability, and top security, it features multi-modal interactions among a group of service entities that are located in Telco's mobile edges. The benefits of seamlessly integrating multiple types of inputs sourced via multiple channels make it widely applicable in fields, like AR/VR, Telepresence, Immersive gaming, etc. TACMM generally consists of four modalities, namely, video, audio, ambient-sensor, and hap-tic detection. Depending on respective requirements and versatile data characteristics, they will unavoidably post challenges to the underlying communication networks, e.g., data sampling pattern, QoS differentiation, intra- and inter-modality synchronization, excessive datagram overhead, etc. In this short paper, we present and analyze these different types of network challenges in the 5G MEC environment upon providing TACMM services, from the perspective of Telco Operators, and then discuss potential schemes that could address them from different aspects as our future work.

Authors: Tianji Jiang (China Mobile, USA); Xiaonan Shi (CMRI, China); Jiajin Gao (CMTI, USA); Peng Liu (China Mobile, China)

Email: tianjijiang@chinamobile.com, shixiaonan@chinamobile.com, jiajingao@chinamobile.com, liupengyjy@chinamobile.com