Nokia and Proximus deliver 5G network slicing innovation to support demanding network conditions.

Using radio software-defined networking and radio resource allocation technologies, Nokia and Proximus have successfully enhanced the performance of 5G network slicing in demanding network conditions. During a live trial at Proximus’ 5G Innovation Lab in Brussels, real-life applications were used to demonstrate how customers can have a consistent experience regardless of how crowded the network is.

With this new 5G RAN slicing functionality, a broad range of applications will benefit, including Industry 4.0, IoT and enterprise applications such as, public safety, drone inspection, and virtual and augmented reality as well as cloud gaming. The solution is available now for trials and will be commercially available in Q3 for 5G standalone.

The trial was performed on the Proximus 5G innovation platform using 50Mhz of spectrum in the 3600MHz band based on Nokia’s 5G AirScale base station. To enable real-time management of slices and network performance, it combined new advanced RAN slicing capabilities in the base station with radio software-defined networking (SDN).

Three devices were configured on three end-to-end slices with bandwidth resources of 60, 30, and 10 percent, respectively. When connected individually, each device reached the maximum bandwidth, and when connected simultaneously, each device reached its assigned capacity.
The trial was successful and assigned specific radio resources per slice which were complemented with further radio capabilities, which reduces latency for slices with time-sensitive applications. It also highlighted how an operator can control and adapt slice parameters in general. Radio resource allocation technologies can be used in a radio network shared between multiple operators.

Nokia’s slice-aware radio resource allocation can be applied for 5G SA slices and 5G NSA traffic. Additionally, it provides seamless continuity between 4G and 5G networks, complementing LTE’s capabilities. A slice can be customisable according to the needs of the applications and/or use case by leveraging RAN software-defined networking to manage RAN resources, schedulers, quality of service, security, traffic isolation, and routing. It can be applied for 4G/5G slicing and edge slicing.

Nokia is the industry leader in 4G/5G network slicing and was the first to demonstrate 4G/5G network slicing across RAN-Transport-Core with management and assurance. Nokia’s network slicing solution supports all LTE, 5G NSA, and 5G SA devices, enabling mobile operators to utilise a huge device ecosystem and provide slice continuity over 4G and 5G.

Nokia’s global customer base has already deployed several live networks and trials of new slicing capabilities, including edge slicing in Virtual Private Networks, LTE-NSA-SA end-to-end network slicing, Sliced Private Wireless, and Slice Management Automation.