Nokia claims it has installed the first ever 5G Edge Slicing system on a live commercial network along with mobile operators Cellcom and Telia.
With a network slicer, operators can offer new services that are sophisticated, speedy and secure, thanks to virtual private networks (VPNs) running over commercial 4G and 5G networks. Once launched, both companies can sell new services to their subscribers and to cloud application and infrastructure service providers. Nokia’s system is now available to its global customer base.
Slicing gives Sandvik mineshare
Nokia and Cellcom’s trial with a sliced RAN-Transport-Core is taking place in Netanya, Israel and focuses on three critical aspects: business applications, the customer experience and enterprise interconnectivity over a high-speed metro network. Nokia and Telia are running a live trial in Tampere, Finland together with high-tech global engineering group, Sandvik. This trial shows how next-generation 5G Edge Slicing functions can operate mining equipment and digital applications.
Slicing out new services
“We are delighted to be the first to deploy the first ever 5G Edge Slicing. Our customer Sandvik is investing heavily in digital mining technologies in its test excavation in Tampere. Our 5G network enables all kinds of new kinds of services and makes the network more efficient,” Jari Collin, CTO, Telia Finland.
Networks can be sliced from any 4G-5G base station
The 5G Edge Slicer builds on previous Nokia 4G/5G partitioning efforts by letting operators keep critical business data traffic local while running slice management, control and assurance on existing central mobile data centres. This operational efficiency cuts costs. It is also scalable, so the same virtualised network infrastructure can be used by several customers in the same area. So a business campus could cater for multiple companies, which slices given out flexibly according their needs. Any city or area with a 4G/5G base station will be able do this.
ARPU days!
This should bump up the average revenue per user for telcos, said Joe Madden, principal analyst at Mobile Experts. “Now Cellcom can differentiate itself and develop new opportunities with cloud application service providers,” said Yaniv Koriat, CTO and VP Engineering at Cellcom Israel.
Nokia’s creating opportunities
“Nokia was first to offer a network slicing solution and we are proud to continue this pioneering story by being the first to offer 5G Edge Slicing,” said Tommi Uitto, Nokia’s president of mobile networks, “I look forward to seeing new area grow and delivering opportunities to our customers in the coming year.”