A new 35-page whitepaper titled "Network Slicing for 5G Networks and Services" has just been published by 5G Americas, an industry trade association. Co-leaders of the white paper working group are Rao Yallapragada and Clara Li of Intel as well as Sabareesan Soundarapandian of Ericsson.
Network slicing, in its simplest description, is the ability to tailor a set of functions to optimize use of the network for each mobile device; it is considered to be key for meeting 5G's diverse use cases and requirements, including future-proof scalability and flexibility.
5G systems will be built to enable logical network slices, which will allow operators to provide networks on an as-a-service basis and meet the wide range of use cases that next generation networks in the 2020 timeframe will demand.
"As we progress towards developing 5G technology, cellular systems are expected to enable a transformation that will touch business, governments and people to enable them with new and diverse capabilities," stated Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas.
"Network slicing makes possible the creation of virtual networks using one common network infrastructure," explained Rao Yallapragada, Director, Intel and co-leader of the white paper. "The implementation of network slicing will provide an end-to-end solution for flexible infrastructure optimized to address future use cases with diverse requirements such as speed, connection, battery life, latency and cost. Including both the core and radio access networks, each slice can be configured with its own network architecture, engineering mechanism and network provisioning."
Chris Pearson remarked, "It is not expected that 5G will arrive as a single 'Big Bang'. Significant progress is already being made on networking technology through the standards bodies and network slicing will play a big role in optimizing 5G networks."
The whitepaper is available for free download on the 5G Americas website.
http://www.5gamericas.org/files/3214/7975/0104/5G_Americas_Network_Slicing_11.21_Final.pdf
