BT, Ericsson and Qualcomm demonstrated advanced 5G slicing for differentiated consumer and enterprise connectivity.
The trial, which took place at BT's Adastral Park research facilities, established network slices for Gaming, Enterprise and Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), and showed how, by allocating a portion of the 5G SA network to provide dynamic partitions for specific use-cases, optimal performance can be maintained for bandwidth-heavy activities including mobile gaming and video conferencing even during peak times.
The tests featured Ericsson’s 5G Core and Radio Access Network technology with devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy Mobile Platform.
Some key points:
- Mobile gaming traffic on EE, the UK's leading network, has nearly doubled since early 2023, exceeding two petabytes per month.
- Network slicing is anticipated to significantly enhance performance and growth in the 5G SA era by providing low-latency, jitter-free, and immersive gaming experiences.
- BT Group, Ericsson, and Qualcomm Technologies showcased superior mobile cloud gaming on Nvidia’s GeForce Now, achieving over 25 Mbps throughput at 1080p, even under additional network load, using network slicing.
- A gaming session on Fortnite with the Samsung S23 Ultra, powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, demonstrated smooth performance through Ericsson’s network slicing and Radio Resource Partitioning, compared to a congested non-optimized eMBB RAN partition.
- The trial also highlighted network slicing's benefits for enterprise applications, showing stable 4K video streaming and efficient enterprise communications on the Samsung S23 Ultra device.
- Ericsson's 5G RAN Slicing and Radio Resource Partitioning ensured optimal experiences for both gaming and enterprise use-cases by allowing devices to connect to multiple network slices based on the application's needs.
Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer, BT Group, said: “Network slicing will enable us to deliver new and improved capabilities for customers in the 5G SA era. As we work diligently towards the launch of our own 5G SA network, today’s successful demonstration of how slicing enables us to differentiate Quality of Service to guarantee performance for different segments is a significant milestone, and illustrative of the new services that will be enabled by 5G SA.”
