5G is an Architectural Shift – Pankaj Kitchlu, Systems Engineering Director (INDIA-SAARC), Juniper Networks

Speaking at the 3^rd edition of Voice&Data TLF 5G Conference “5G for Delivering Transformation”, Pankaj Kitchlu, Systems Engineering Director (INDIA-SAARC), Juniper Networks, said that 5G will prove to be an architectural shift, as he talked about network slicing.

Three Things for 5G Implementation

Talking about the implementation, Pankaj said that equal access, dedicated policy, and differentiated services consisted of the three important things, which when “mixed together” allows the telcos to use the 5G block. He further added that the experience of the telcos over the last 3 generations also serves as an important aspect; experience related to delivering service to a large number of people.

“Indian environment has been one of the most difficult (environments)”, he said, adding that telcos have done a lot of innovation “ahead of the whole world”.

Another key aspect for 5G remains the introduction of cloud to the networks. Lastly, he said that the focus on enterprise makes up the three key motivators of the three important things for 5G that were mentioned previously.

Pankaj further said that cloud native-ness, IT and telcos have formed together more that 200 use cases for 5G, which will help steer the direction of the country’s digital growth. After that, he discussed network slicing, and again, talked about three important domains of what network slicing can do.

First, network slicing separates the topology of the whole network, not just manage the QoS at the entry to the network. “We will have multiple logical networks on one physical network; that is network slice”, he said. He also mentioned that to a network, there will be various edges, per the demand of the consumer.

Pankaj also described the shift in focus for Juniper Networks. Over the last 5 years, he said, the company’s focus has shifted from telecom to cloud and enterprise. He further described a few of Juniper Networks’ products and solutions focused on network automation via AI, cloud-native networks solutions and so on.