Communication Service Providers (CSPs) face common evolutionary challenges on the path from LTE to 5G and long after, like how to implement widespread coverage while managing unpredictable demand, and how to monetize the considerable investment they’ve already made and will continue to make in 5G. The 5G core’s open design provides a flexible and dynamic environment that can help CSPs resolve these challenges.
Let´s talk first about risk mitigation. 5G core services must be deployed regionally to provide optimal coverage and low latency. Before 5G, that could mean huge CSP investment in server hardware and the equipment to manage it, as well as the real estate to host them. 5G provides the means to help CSPs minimize implementation risk by leveraging the public cloud. Public clouds can provide the scale and common cloud infrastructure needed to help CSPs quickly serve demand, capex-free. This flexibility to leverage public cloud infrastructure doesn’t need to be permanent, nor is it limited to hyperscalers. 5G core can be deployed on more than one cloud, including:
- private clouds: custom-designed for CSP use exclusively,
- on-premises clouds: extensions of the public cloud but implemented inside the customer premises.
- hybrid cloud: deployments where more than one cloud architecture is in use simultaneously.
“In this case, public cloud capacity is used to serve the customer rapidly, avoiding over-building capacity or under-serving demand,” said Mike Hawley, Nokia’s head of packet core research and development. “In public cloud, [CSPs] can take advantage of wide geographic coverage by hyperscalers while only using and paying for a fraction of the cost of these resources using opex instead of capex.”
To take full advantage of public clouds, 5G core software must be cloud-native by design. But what does that mean? In the past, software was built monolithically, providing very little flexibility and adaptability. Cloud-native introduces the microservices concept: software is now built as independent modules that communicate among themselves. This allows scalability, flexibility, and modularity. 5G core network functions are now based on this concept, so they can dynamically scale to meet customer and network demands. This environment enables microservices to handle failure automatically and makes it easier to manage app lifecycles — apps can be added, removed, and updated as necessary.
CSPs adopting cloud-native design principles make a fundamental shift in the way they think about their networks, asserted Hawley.
“They need to think about the network as an orchestrated and automated collection of microservices, instead of disjoint network elements,” he said.
Kubernetes provides the framework to orchestrate and manage network apps, said Hawley. “What this means is the network can grow and shrink, just as webscale applications do.”
CSPs going the cloud-native route have to adapt best cloud practices to address the unique challenges of telecom. CSPs must integrate software from multiple vendors while having to ingest continuous delivery streams from each of them, for example. Nokia’s DelOps (Delivery Ops) extends the continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) concept of DevOps to telecom.
“DevOps that’s used by many web companies, is inherently single vendor and just doesn’t apply to a CSP’s multi-vendor environment,” said Hawley.
“Nokia’s DelOps solves this challenge and brings true multi-vendor CI/CD to CSPs,” said Hawley.
Explore more about 5G Core network automation on this video from Mike Hawley:
Well, what about monetization?
The turn to cloud-native apps and services, and the ability to deploy the network on the cloud clears roadblocks which have, in the past, hindered CSPs from achieving the agility to create, grow and scale new services. Historically, the Application Programming Interfaces (API)-based services employed at the siloed network core have been challenging to implement when the network itself relies on telecom-specific hardware. In other words, 5G core services can operate agnostically from the underlying hardware on which they are deployed. This frees CSPs from potential vendor lock-in.
“We have already seen financial reports that show additional revenue coming from 5G premium services, and show a significant increase in subscribers coming from users seeking 5G benefits,” said Hawley.
Already, immersive gaming and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) are driving 5G uptake, along with use in autonomous vehicles, telemedicine and remote industrial automation management and control. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for what’s to come. As new 5G use cases develop, leveraging the public cloud as part of a 5G core deployment strategy so CSPs can dynamically manage their burgeoning 5G businesses more cost-effectively.
5G core networks create flexibility CSPs need to reduce implementation risk, by taking advantage of public cloud infrastructure. 5G core network innovations drive efficiencies. And finally, 5G core networks are open, creating the very environment that enables quick development, implementation, and scale of new services and new monetization opportunities for CSPs. 5G makes it real!
Explore more at Nokia Cloud Packet Core page.
