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Radisys Series — Who Disaggregated My RAN?
eBook
Chapter 9:
Slice and Serve: Network Slicing in Action
In my last blog, we briefly touched upon the advanced use cases that are possible in 5G. One such use case is
Network Slicing. 5G cellular services should broadly support use cases including enhanced Mobile Broadband
(eMBB), Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) and Massive Internet of Things (MIoT). On the lines of
these use cases, 5G is designed to serve different verticals such as industrial (robotics), transportation (automated
vehicles), media (streaming), entertainment (gaming) and many others. There is also another interesting possibility
of creating multiple differentiated logical networks within an operator network for MVNOs. All of these allow
operators to conceive and monetize new types of services.
One challenge though is the ability of the 5G network to cater to the varied requirements of these use cases in an
end-to-end fashion. How does the 5G network handle this challenge? We will discuss the framework that enables
network slicing, the O-RAN Alliance's approach towards this feature, and the further evolution of network slicing.
Network Slicing—The 3GPP View
Conceptually a network slice is a logical network that is created over the underlying physical network to serve a
specific use case or service in an end-to-end fashion. The 3GPP-defined slice types are eMBB, URLLC, MIoT and V2X
(vehicle to everything communication). The concept of a slice applies not just to the network, but to the user device
or terminal as well. A 5G terminal can support multiple slices simultaneously.
The logical slices can be created in the radio access network, core network and transport network to support end-
to-end logical networks. For example, this could mean specific instances of network functions in the control and
user plane for dedicated processing for network slices. New network functions were defined in 5G core network for
network slicing related call flows and slice administration. Network functions that support slicing are termed "slice
aware."
