UAE's Etisalat, in collaboration with Huawei, has announced a major milestone in the development of 5G network slicing in the Middle East and Africa region. The two companies have successfully demonstrated 5G network slicing on a commercial 5G Cloud Core, marking the first such deployment in the region. Etisalat said this is also a step towards the commercialisation of Network-as-a-Service.
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5G Network Slicing
5G network slicing is a technology that allows operators to create multiple virtual networks on a shared physical network. This allows operators to offer customers different network slices with different performance characteristics, tailored to the specific needs of different applications and services.
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Etisalat said it can now efficiently allocate network resources by utilising cloud-native virtualised applications on the 5G Cloud Core, integrated with Network Orchestrator, Network Slice Management Function, and Communication Service Management Function. Network slicing enables effective resource utilisation, cost reduction, and operational efficiency.
For this demo, Etisalat said it has used a commercial 5G smartphone, commercial radio access network (RAN) equipment, and its commercially deployed 5G Standalone Core.
Benefits of 5G Network Slicing
5G network slicing offers a number of benefits to both operators and customers. For operators, it can help to improve resource utilisation, reduce costs, and increase operational efficiency. For customers, it can offer a wider range of services with improved performance and reliability.
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The company aims to expedite the availability of its commercial Slicing services network nationwide with focus on 5G mobility, Nationwide broadband, Mobile edge computing and business solutions.
