Industry Thought Leadership

The “best-effort” service provided by traditional mobile networks can no longer keep up with the diversified requirements of vertical industry applications. These requirements include ultra-low and deterministic latency, mobility, reliability, and tenant security isolation.

An example is the power system differential protection under the Ultra High-Reliability and Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) scenario. When a switch command is delivered, the communication between the master and slave differential protection terminals involves electrical vector contrasting and verification of transmission path parameters. The network needs to provide a deterministic delay of 20 ms and a jitter of 600 us or less.

Huawei, China Telecom and State Grid completed the world’s first 5G SA Electricity Slice Test under a real power grid environment in early April, in Nanjing, China. This was also the world’s first electricity slice to comply with the latest 5G SA specifications released by 3GPP, in which Huawei provides the SA electricity slice with millisecond-level latency. It enhances bidirectional communication between power grids and end users, ensuring precise management of small power units on the power grid terminals of overloaded power grids. These advantages help minimize the economic and social impact caused by power outages.

Differentiated and well-defined network services’ capabilities are named by Huawei as “deterministic capabilities”. A network with these capabilities is considered deterministic. 5G deterministic networking will help transform traditional application-adaptive networks into application-defined networks and serve the needs of different industry applications.

5G deterministic networking is based on Cloud Native architecture. Dynamic orchestration and tenant isolation of dynamic intelligent network slicing technologies provides deterministic network service capabilities for industry applications, changes the operation model and work mode of key services in vertical markets, and improves operational efficiency and intelligent decision-making for traditional vertical industries.

In addition, the heterogeneous, ultra-performance MEC platform provides the best bit-cost algorithm, computing capability, and connectivity to guarantee industry applications with the most appropriate differentiated and deterministic network services, enabling mobile networks to evolve from “best-effort” to “guaranteed” delivery.

The core network is the key to developing 5G network slicing in terms of on-demand network definition, fast deployment, automated operations, end-to-end SLA assurance and capability exposure.

Huawei has been investing heavily in research and development of 5G network architecture evolution and slicing technologies. The Huawei 5G core network is built on leading cloud-native, connectivity+, and edge computing technologies, and is the industry’s first core network to support 2G/3G/4G/5G NSA/5G SA in-depth convergence. Based on CUPS distributed architecture, it supports one-stop user plane plug and play, on-demand scheduling of heterogeneous edge computing resources, fast integration of third-party applications, and building of an open edge ecosystem, providing differentiated services and enabling thousands of industries. As a testament to its capabilities, Huawei’s 5G intelligent and simplified core network solution recently won the “Best 5G Core Network Technology” Award at the 5G World Summit 2019 in London.

Huawei works with industry partners such as smart grids, 5G V2X, VR games, 4K/VR live broadcast, and telemedicine to verify 5G deterministic networking and templates for differentiated, deterministic network service capabilities in many vertical applications. These applications include intelligent, distributed feeder automation, autonomous driving, 4K/8K live broadcast, and remote surgery. Huawei also joins hands with partners to define the industry slice template library to accelerate the use of 5G for thousands of industries.

In partnership with the majority of the operators in the Middle East region, Huawei has launched 5G services based on a Cloud Native Core network architecture. We have also already started the network slicing and MEC practice in 4K Video delivery over FWA, as well as campus intelligent management and automation direction in countries like KSA, UAE and Kuwait. Huawei will introduce the verified 5G deterministic networking and templates to the Middle East region benefiting the continuous innovation in local industry applications. We ultimately believe that the region’s ubiquitous industry application will contribute its unique value to global 5G ecosystem diversity.