Deutsche Telekom is offering industrialists so-called ‘campus networks’, which offer a kind of proto-slicing as a pre-cursor to slicing-proper with 5G networks.
But its recent work in the Port of Hamburg with Nokia experimented with network-slicing proper, specifically for environmental monitoring, traffic control, and maintenance support. The work focused on end-to-end network slicing in a “fully cloudified multi-tenant environment”, says Antje Williams, senior vice president of 5G campus networks, Deutsche Telekom.
Deutsche Telekom says the experiment has shown that operators of public networks can serve the industrial space with 5G slices and LTE proto-slices hived-off of their everyday network setups. But what is proto-slicing, as it is available for industry now with LTE-based ‘campus networks’, and what is the difference with network slicing on 5G?
Williams explains: “The most interesting part of 5G in this case might be the development in the core network, like network slicing. Many applications might not depend on the LTE or 5G radio part, but need specific features which are completely different. This was demonstrated in the test-field in Hamburg.”
Here is Williams explanation in full (see below).
For more on smart ports, and the role of private networks and public slices on the waterfront, and to hear more from Deutsche Telekom, among others, check out the new report: ‘Smart Ports: Automation and Intelligence with Private LTE / 5G Networks and Public Network Slices’. Click here to see all the latest reports from Enterprise IoT Insights.
…
Antje Williams, senior vice president of 5G campus networks, Deutsche Telekom:
“A campus network is a connectivity solution for a specified area, tailored to the needs and use cases of the customer. Our dual-slice approach combines the public LTE network in the wider area of activity with a private LTE network layer in the campus area to support customers’ use cases. This uses established processes for network planning, building, and operation, and campus equipment to enhance the public coverage in the wider area. At the same time, the implementation of a dedicated private slice – for coverage indoors and outdoors – enables network and spectrum resources to be guaranteed, and traffic to be decoupled and retained locally.
“The dual-slice approach uses the same infrastructure on the radio side, but adds a mini-core network box on the core side, just for the traffic on campus in the private layer. The concept can be considered as a kind of proto-slicing, or early form of network slicing, that will pave the way for more advanced slicing solutions in 5G.
“The dual-slice concept can be considered as a kind of proto-slicing, or early form of network slicing, that will pave the way for more advanced slicing solutions in 5G”
Antje Williams, senior vice president of 5G campus networks, Deutsche Telekom
Features like throughput, latency, reliability, security, IoT device management, and other quality-of-service components are guaranteed by Deutsche Telekom based on SLAs signed with the customer. Depending on the customer requirements, our campus network offering can be supplemented with an edge cloud on site or somewhere on our public network.
“However, this is not full end-to-end network slicing in a fully cloudified multi-tenant environment which will deliver specific capabilities as virtual slices in an automated way. This was however the focus of the 5G-MoNArch research project at the Port of Hamburg, in particular the 5G architectural model allowing the more dynamic allocation of infrastructure resources to network slices.”
