{"id":10499,"date":"2017-07-12T10:58:29","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T09:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/futurenetworks\/?post_type=digest&p=10499"},"modified":"2019-09-10T20:29:28","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T19:29:28","slug":"network-slicing-key-industry-specific-5g-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/technologies\/networks\/digest\/network-slicing-key-industry-specific-5g-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Network Slicing Key for Industry-Specific 5G Services"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following the five-fold increase in 4G penetration in China over the last two years, similarly rapid take-up is projected for its successor, making China the world\u2019s largest 5G market by 2025. For this reason, delegates\u00a0gathered<\/a>\u00a0last week at the GSMA\u2019s Future Networks Seminar in Shanghai, to discuss the business challenges that must be overcome to bring this prospect to pass.<\/p>\n

As Head of the Future Network Programme Henry Calvert reminded the session, 5G is not just about superfast mobile broadband.\u00a0 The advantages 5G technology presents in addition to this \u2013 such as ultra-low latency communications and massive IoT \u2013 are, from 2020, set to increase productivity at a pace never before witnessed in the industry.<\/p>\n

The key question then, as Mr Calvert put it, is this: \u201chow can we connect the vertical industries to the infrastructure that we are developing? How do we ensure those vertical markets can talk to mobile customers and understand what they need?\u201d.\u00a0 The challenge ahead is to expand the ecosystem to include vertical industry requirements: how manufacturing, finance and health industries can be brought into the development process to ensure their needs and expectations are considered. Questions remain over how to make best use of the remaining development time, to stoke customer demand from the outset, and how 5G technology can be made to yield positive returns for investors from the very start.<\/p>\n

The answers to these will come from 5G network slicing for industry-specific services.\u00a0 Slicing is effectively a way of delivering multiple networks from a single physical network, and is set to be principal way in which operators can enable verticals to provide bespoke solutions to their end users.\u00a0 For operators, it will enable effective management of their networks in a multi-access context, as they start to offer a wider variety of services, and how the service level with verticals can be agreed and monetised.\u00a0 David Gannon, VP of Technology Strategy and Industry Relations at Deutsche Telekom, was very clear: \u201cAt Deutsche Telekom, we\u2019re big believers in slicing.\u201d A key issue under consideration at Deutsche Telekom \u2013 in partnership with China Mobile, as co-chairs of the GSMA\u2019s Network Slicing Taskforce \u2013 is how best to agree common standards.\u00a0 \u201cAmong our top priorities at the moment is trying to define a standard definition of precisely what slicing is, so that we can take it to the vertical business partners and conduct a consistent conversation.\u201d\u00a0 By September of this year, therefore, the GSMA will announce a definition with industry-wide recognition, allowing the work of those developing vertical markets to proceed without delay.<\/p>\n

With traditional value levers on a downward trajectory in terms of profitability \u2013 text revenues being effectively gone, voice revenues diminishing rapidly, and roaming revenues in Europe at zero as of June this year \u2013 the challenge becomes making a positive return on access to networks.\u00a0 Customer demand for access to 5G services will therefore drive the economics of network monetisation in the years ahead.\u00a0 To make the cell-densification necessary for 5G rollout economical, however, operators cannot vary network provision to match different hardware and software across different vendors.\u00a0 As Mr Gannon explained, therefore, the key to enabling network operators to thrive in this new context will be disaggregation of hardware and software.\u00a0 High-intensity deployments of IoT technology such as autonomous driving will require significant cell-densification. And \u2013 as Core Network Architect at SK Telecom Jong Han Park outlined in his supporting case study \u2013 the strategy of disaggregation and slicing has already been shown to be successful.<\/p>\n

Vertical businesses will become the largest contributors to 5G uptake, and will therefore constitute the greatest draw on bandwidth. In more extreme circumstances as things currently stand, traffic could leave as little as 20 \u2013 30% available, which could well affect user experiences.\u00a0 China Mobile\u2019s Head of Network Innovation LAB Lu Lu therefore urged delegates to consider the challenge posed by the requirement for end-to-end optimisation. To tackle the challenges, China Mobile called for the network innovation, emphasising the need for a customer-orientated approach, isolated security and guaranteed quality of services.<\/p>\n

Bin Fan, Director of the 5G Innovation Centre at China Unicom, stressed that only by understanding verticals\u2019 needs, and discussing potential business models with them, can the imminent common understanding of slicing be put to best use. The potential gains are highly significant, more so than perhaps even some in the industry realise. 5G is not just about connectivity: the bandwidth and low latency of 5G allows for possibilities not only for progression to the Internet of Things, but also to the intelligence of those connected things.\u00a0 Intelligent connections enabled by developments in AI will prove a key direction for progress in 5G as rollout proceeds over the coming months and years.<\/p>\n

As several speakers reminded us, even the industry\u2019s most informed experts cannot anticipate the creative uses the market will make of such a dramatic advance in technological capability.\u00a0 Even after a single year, as David Gannon pointed out, IoT city biking here in Shanghai went from literally zero to an abundant feature of the city.\u00a0 With 428 million 5G connections expected in China by 2025 \u2013 39% of the world\u2019s total \u2013 a great many of those innovations in 5G deployment will be on show around us, during future sessions of the Mobile World Congress. As we work towards that point, we know the immediate task is to seek close collaboration with our vertical industry partners, who share our interest in making it possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following the five-fold increase in 4G penetration in China over the last two years, similarly rapid take-up is projected for its successor, making China the world\u2019s largest 5G market by 2025. For this reason, delegates\u00a0gathered\u00a0last week at the GSMA\u2019s Future Networks Seminar in Shanghai, to discuss the business challenges that must be overcome to bring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":10564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6894,9714,60],"tags":[],"algolia_discover_type":[15357],"class_list":["post-10499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5g-digest","category-digest","category-latest-news","algolia_discover_type-article"],"yoast_head":"\nNetwork Slicing Key for Industry-Specific 5G Services - Networks<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/technologies\/networks\/digest\/network-slicing-key-industry-specific-5g-services\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Network Slicing Key for Industry-Specific 5G Services\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Following the five-fold increase in 4G penetration in China over the last two years, similarly rapid take-up is projected for its successor, making China the world\u2019s largest 5G market by 2025. 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