Learn how this Catalyst project is using reliable 5G network operations to boost customer loyalty. The project shows how a new digital twin network platform can help service providers to simulate network performance and demand based on historic user-based AI - then apply business rules, knowledge graphs and machine learning inference models to verify SLA guarantees and configure network slices. Success will deliver a better and more reliable service experience for customers, and a more cost-effective route to earning their loyalty for service providers.
5G network operations need digital twins to ensure customer loyalty
5G has yielded dramatic increases in network scale, and much of the business innovation flowing from that growth has come from real-time network operations based on network slicing. As the possibilities of network slicing however become better known among vertical industry customers, demand increases and so too does network load – and with it strain on operation and maintenance (O&M) processes, such as provisioning, service perception, and dynamic resource scheduling.
This raises serious questions over how to accurately plan and recycle network slices, intelligently identify network business requirements, monitor and optimize slice performance in real time, and cope with extreme circumstances. Nonetheless, guarantees based on service level agreements (SLAs) are proving an increasingly important commercial requirement to achieving ROI on 5G – just as those service levels become more challenging to manage and predict. The reality is that traditional network O&M cannot meet today’s requirements in terms of availability, reliability, low latency, safety, customized service, and swift response.
This is precisely the challenge the Digital twin network application in 5G network operations Catalyst seeks to address, by applying digital twin technology to 5G networks – that is, by creating virtual ‘images’ of 5G network infrastructure and then using advanced AI models trained with historical network data to optimize slice planning and analysis, and ultimately achieve intelligent and automated O&M. Through a digital twin, a 5G network can be efficiently analyzed, diagnosed, simulated, predicted and controlled, to achieve low-cost trial and error testing. By helping to simulate network behavior more accurately, this approach can validate network policies more efficiently, and realize network autonomy based on full life-cycle management from planning to optimization.
The project’s Digital Twin Network Platform allows developers to create digital twins for end-to-end network elements, including the radio access network, transport network, and core network, as well as the GIS and BIM for data centers. Business rules, knowledge graphs, and machine learning inference models can then be applied, based on the relevant application scenarios. Telemetry data collection is applied to provide real-time interaction with the physical network – performance information such as routing network delay can be approximately abstracted as a graph with a vector, and then the GNN (graph neural network) is used for calculation.
Digital twinning is now an established approach in smart manufacturing and smart city applications, with clear advantages demonstrated in power consumption, pre-verification and lifecycle management. Now is therefore clearly the time to extend these benefits to cellular network operations – indeed sensors and controllers connected to private 5G networks in smart factories which require mMTC slice planning are among the clearest early use cases, along with slice maintenance and optimization in telemedicine.
Weiyuan Li, Project Manager at the China Mobile Research Institute, says that “this is a new start for the use of digital twin technology in telecom management, and a great help for the whole industry to expand the 5G industry market. Digital twin networks can provide performance guarantees and enables 5G network automation and autonomy.” Success will deliver better and more reliable service experiences for customers of 5G network providers, and a more cost-effective route to earning their loyalty. For vertical industry customers this technology can help simplify new business operation and launch processes, expand vertical industry blueprints, and help to achieve intelligent digital upgrades – and, ultimately, enable the construction of smart communities and promote modernization of community governance.