Rapid acceleration and availability of network slicing will make a slice the main way that enterprises purchase communications services. Dheeraj Remella, the chief product office at Volt Active Data, explains how slicing has changed the telecoms business and how BSS will need to transform to sell and provision slices.
Vanilla Plus: How has network slicing changed the game for communications service providers (CSPs) over the last five years?
Dheeraj Remella: Network slicing is not, technically, new. It existed in 4G as access point name (APN) but was limited to consumer segmentation between carriers for handling roaming customers. Now, in 5G, network slicing’s role significantly expands because of the clear enterprise benefits and the variety of service level agreements (SLAs) and guarantees that go with the various 5G use cases. It’s also made possible by things like network functions virtualisation (NFV).
Volt Active Data
Broadly speaking, the main network slicing use cases are capacity for enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), latency for ultra reliable low latency communication (URLLC) and scale for massive machine type communication (mMTC). While enhanced mobile broadband is the lowesthanging fruit for things like virtual reality and stadium-local broadcasting, latency and scale are key for industrial applications. Over the last five years, network slicing matured from concept to reality, proof of concept to proof of technology. Most recently, Nokia, Ericsson and Amdocs have been leading the way with the implementation of dynamic network slicing in industrial environments such as ports, manufacturing plants and warehouses.
VP: What types of technology investments do you see CSPs embracing to be able to succeed with network slicing?
DR: CSP success with network slicing depends on two key capabilities: end–to-end softwarisation and enabling customers around usage of network slicing.
For the first one, network functions and business support systems (BSS) need to be able to not only have the agility to scale but also the flexibility to quickly define and implement various charging plans depending on the use case and its go-to-market modality. Data modeling and event processing play a critical role in this new architectural paradigm.
For the second one, CSPs need to enable directly or via services their customers’ ability to use network slices, think in terms of network-as-a-service, and must also themselves be able to rethink business processes within the context of network slicing and edge computing. CSPs need to consider process efficiency, workload distribution between edge and cloud, and data security at each stage at rest and between stages in motion. When it comes to security, it’s not just the attack surface that’s important but also injection attacks.
VP: What mistakes, if any, are CSPs starting to make around network slicing?
DR: I’m not sure I would call them mistakes, but in general instead of looking for a golden network slicing use case, CSPs would be much better off if they focused instead on re-imagining existing systems to determine which systems and processes can benefit the most from network slicing. They should be asking themselves questions like: How can isolating network characteristics help business processes become more resilient and improve performance and uptime?
VP: What’s the best way CSPs can fully capitalise on network slicing?
DR: For CSPs to make the most of their network slicing investments, they need to work with BSS technologies that provide the ability and agility to handle the scale that network slicing makes possible while improving their flexibility to support new business models. CSPs’ BSS also need to be able to take advantage of 3GPP charging triggers in order to create dynamic plans that align with their customers’ business models and needs. In addition to having data models that can capture the business model, the BSS also need to dynamically incorporate new business and security rules.
VP: How do you see network slicing playing out over the next five years?
DR: With 5G and now the initial discussions of 6G, it’s clear that network slicing has a future role in helping enterprises scale and operate globally. My educated guess is that within five years, network slicing will become the primary form of network usage for all enterprises and this technology will proliferate through all aspects of business in all industries. Whether it’s established enterprises adopting the new ways of doing business or startups redefining industries, network slicing allows enterprises to divide the challenges from use case to use case and thus enjoy better-connected, more resilient business processes and models.
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