Vodafone Idea demos Network Slicing over 5G SA with Nokia

On Tuesday, Vodafone Idea announced that it has used Nokia's 5G RAN and Core to demonstrate Network Slicing.

Vodafone Idea, Nokia Demonstrate 5G Network Slicing

In a press release, Vodafone Idea had said that it has conducted the trial in Gandhinagar, where it had been conducting 5G trials. The telco, along with Nokia, demonstrated two network slices. The two network slices had two different data speeds. The first slice was general data traffic, and the second slice had high speed and low latency. Without the second slice, VR content achieved a lower resolution delivering an average user experience. Using Nokia’s solution, Vi showed that network slicing significantly improved the user experience by allowing viewers to enjoy the high-resolution VR.

On the occasion, Jagbir Singh, CTO, Vodafone Idea, said, "network slicing opens up new and exciting opportunities and will allow our enterprise customers to gain new competencies and efficiencies from 5G-powered use cases, like Virtual Reality, Industry 4.0 and the IoT, among others".

He added, "As we prepare for 5G for a better tomorrow for consumers and enterprises, we are happy to partner with our longstanding partner, Nokia, to trial network slicing capabilities and look forward to working with them on 5G deployment."

With a 5G core comes network slicing; it will allow telcos to better monetize 5G from a B2C standpoint. Along with slicing, CSPs can rely on the ultra-low latencies that will come with a 5G core. With network slicing, telcos can establish “slices” of networks, fine-tuned to the deliverables. This will allow telcos to differentiate services over the same physical infrastructure.

This will allow telcos to charge customers for varying service qualities and performance levels. This allows telcos to introduce speed-tiering, which will just consist of different slices with different capacities and speeds. Speed-tiering will also represent a shift from the usual telecom subscriptions; instead of telcos offering limited data, they can offer limited speed.