Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Verizon demos 5G network slicing for Axon public safety

Verizon and Axon Enterprise demonstrated the ability to transmit video from public safety devices over a network slice in a completely commercial 5G environment.

The trial carried  Axon Fleet 3 and Axon Respond services over Verizon’s live 5G network in Phoenix, Arizona. The Axon Fleet 3 in-car video system provides live maps and live streaming from mobile cameras along with real-time situational awareness through Axon Respond to help enhance situational awareness for law enforcement members not on the scene.

The test results were measured in four categories.

  1. The time to first frame, which is the time between when a remote law enforcement officer requests a stream and when that officer can remotely access the live stream.
  2. Start percent, or the percent of time the stream started before timing out and causing the law enforcement officer not on the scene to potentially abandon remotely accessing video and call into law enforcement personnel on the scene instead.
  3. Latency, or the responsiveness of the application across the network.
  4. Jitter, which is the sequence and timing of the audio and video packages being sent across the network.

The results showed the application, while running over a Verizon network slice, had sustained performance levels. Compared to Verizon’s commercial 5G Ultra Wideband network, services on the network slice showed: 

  • 53% improvement in 95th percentile of time to first frame
  • 5% improvement in start percent
  • 68% improvement in latency
  • 83% improvement in jitter

“This most recent network slicing demonstration shows one of many use cases where network slicing can be a game-changer for our enterprise, public sector, and Verizon Frontline customers,” said Adam Koeppe, SVP of Network and Technology Planning for Verizon. “We have undergone a massive transformation of our network over the past few years, including building on a cloud-native architecture, virtualizing from the core to the edge, building an advanced 5G standalone core, driving capacity in our fiber core, adding robust and varied spectrum assets, and infusing intelligence throughout the network. These changes allow us to develop and test this new technology that effectively matches the required network resources with the performance characteristics needed for an app or use case to work effectively.”

https://www.verizon.com/about/news/network-slicing-technology-public-safety