nd entertainment, smart energy, smart transportation domains, etc. Some of the early MEC implementations were proprietary. Eventually, the ETSI MEC standard was developed to allow interoperable MEC deployments. Even though MEC is commonly associated with 5G, the MEC standard is access-agnostic, allowing deployment independent from the underlying RAN. MEC can therefore be supported with LTE, NR, and other non-3GPP access technologies such as Wi-Fi and fixed networks. When it comes to MEC deployment in cellular networks, certain provisions have been made in 3GPP spec- ifications to allow the edge computing concept; however, the rest was left for ETSI MEC to specify. In a nutshell, MEC provides an environment in proximity to an end user, in which a server application, which would otherwise reside in the remote cloud, can run. This environment provides ultra-low latency, high bandwidth, and access to added-value information through MEC APIs; for example, real-time access network information, context information, loca- tion awareness, etc. MEC is poised to open the cloud infrastructure to operators, service providers, and third parties (i.e. application developers and content providers), helping to meet the demanding QoS requirements of new 5G systems. In this section, we present some aspects of the MEC technology and explain its relevance to the 5G architecture. 6 Enabling Technologies 6.4.1 Key Ideas In this section we describe the ETSI MEC platform as it is currently defined and a number of potential enhancements being considered, which may become part of MEC in the future. For end users, MEC can substantially improve latency, which is crucial for ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) applications and new emerging services, such as augmented reality (AR). For mobile network operators (MNOs), MEC provides an oppor- tunity to open up their networks to over-the-top service providers, creating a new busi- ness opportunity. MEC system architecture is defined in two flavors: standalone and NFV-based. Regardles