How to improve delivery of 5G services and applications – without changing core infrastructure

Among the promises of the 5G era is a range of entirely new, sector-specific digital services, achieved via advanced network technologies such as network slicing and multi-edge computing – which require consistently high performance and agile connectivity. To properly support delivery of these and remain competitive, CSPs need to provide simple but high-performance connectivity for optimal latency and throughput across mobile, IP transport and cloud/MEC technologies. The commercial prospects if this can be achieved are potentially immense – but the current mobile user plane in 5G architecture makes service delivery both highly complex and expensive for CSPs to deploy.

Solving this requires full integration of the mobile network with internet native technologies such as cloud for the first time – and this is the challenge the Modernizing 5G service delivery Catalyst seeks to address. The solution introduces a plugin based on SRv6 mobile user plane (MUP) architecture, to bridge mobile with native internet transport and cloud technologies – without making any changes to existing 5G core infrastructure. This is achieved via a gateway for translation and a controller for managing the mobile user plane.

Introduction of SRv6MUP to standards-based 5G in this way will allow mobile traffic to be forwarded flexibly across the transport network and into the cloud – bridging the gap between mobile and native technologies and helping to establish a simplified, cost-effective solution to high-speed connectivity within the core network. If successful, the solution will enable SRv6MUP to provide an optimal path to an application running on a server with a 5G core, while the 5G core runs as it is.

Satoru Matsushima, Technical Meister at Softbank and Project Champion for the Catalyst, explains that “This Catalyst will show how several services can be easily delivered with highly optimized connectivity, with application instances running on MEC servers in a 5G network. This could be highly beneficial when network integration for applications can be done by SRv6 MUP with no 5G core modification. Designing for network automation and application integration tends to be complex and fragile, with huge implementation workloads. SRv6MUP can free CSPs from such difficulties, accelerating 5G application delivery and stimulating future development of advanced applications.”

Reducing complexity in this way will be of most immediate benefit to CSPs, especially product managers working in 5G network development, as the far simpler architecture enables them to drive down costs, increase top-line revenues and reduce operational hassles. The benefits will quickly flow from there to verticals such as manufacturing, automotive, healthcare and retail, which will enjoy a notable rise in the availability and cost-effectiveness of advanced connected services, opening up new routes to realizing digital transformation.