Ericsson and SK Telecom demonstrate 5G network slicing technology
Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) and SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) announced October 23, 2015, a successful demonstration of 5G network slicing technology.
Held at SK Telecom’s corporate R&D center in Bundang, South Korea, the demonstration featured the creation of virtual network slices optimized for services including super multi-view and augmented reality/virtual reality, massive Internet of Things offerings and enterprise solutions.
With network slicing, a single physical network can be partitioned into multiple virtual networks to offer optimal support for different types of services for different types of customer segments. By using logical instead of physical resources, it enables operators to provide networks on an as-a-service basis, which enhances operational efficiency while reducing time-to-market for new services.
As a result, network slicing is currently drawing attention from global operators, equipment vendors and software solution providers, along with standardization bodies such as 3GPP and ITU, as a practical solution for supporting 5G use cases in a reliable and efficient manner. The instantiation of the network slicing is using the NFV based Ericsson Virtual Evolved Packet Core (EPC) solution.
Alex Jinsung Choi, Chief Technology Officer, SK Telecom, says: “Network slicing is one of the key enabling technologies for SK Telecom’s all-IT-based 5G architecture, and this successful demonstration is a significant step toward achieving the world’s first commercialization/deployment of 5G network systems.”
Ulf Ewaldsson, Chief Technology Officer, Ericsson, says: “As Ericsson’s demonstration with SK Telecom shows, the development of 5G has reached a very exciting phase. Success with network slicing technology is critical to enable networks to become innovation platforms for new types of applications and thereby meet the future expectations of people, business and society.”
The network slicing demonstration represents a milestone for the memorandum of understanding (MoU) announced by Ericsson and SK Telecom in July 2015. Under the terms of the MoU, the two companies will develop and deploy network slicing technology optimized for 5G services, build a joint 5G test bed and provide the world’s first 5G pilot services.
Ericsson and SK Telecom also plan to build the world’s first hyperscale datacenter for 5G based on Ericsson’s pioneering HDS 8000. Launched at Mobile World Congress in February 2015, this solution represents a new generation of hyperscale datacenter systems that uses Intel® Rack Scale Architecture for a disaggregated hardware approach that dramatically improves efficiency, utilization, automation and total cost of ownership for both IT and telecom workloads.
Notes to editors
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