New weapons for operators in the 5G era: edge computing and network slicing

China's 5G construction is in full swing. According to the data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China adds more than 10,000 5G base stations every week. Such a huge investment has brought huge cost pressure to operators. Compared with the rapid upgrade of network infrastructure, mobile services are obviously lagging behind. This has further exacerbated the operators' concerns that the increase in mobile services will not increase revenue.

[[329714]]

Development Status of 5G's Three Major Businesses

As we all know, 5G has three major business scenarios: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable and ultra-low latency communication (uRLLC), and massive machine type communications (mMTC). In fact, the 5G standard has drawn a blueprint for full business coverage.

In the initial stage of 5G, eMBB business is definitely the main mode and the core demand of mass communication. Compared with the high expectations of the public, the operators themselves are more entangled. The high operating pressure of operators' 5G is pinned on the growth of business brought by the better service quality of 5G. However, the majority of users who are accustomed to the growth rate of fee reduction are not willing to pay for it. Moreover, the business demand that relies on 5G high-speed network has not exploded on a large scale.

The mMTC business has placed too much hope on operators and is one of the foundations for the vigorous development of the industrial Internet. Although the number is huge, the IoT business is not just a matter of connection. Its close connection with the business platform requires strong service capabilities to open up the interaction between sensors and systems. Operators are obviously not prepared enough. The uRLLC business has put forward high requirements for network technology, and it still needs to wait for the maturity of the industry before commercial implementation.

Operators' exploration of new services

In order to cope with the problem of sluggish growth in mobile broadband services, the three major operators have all started to focus on 2B services. The new features of 5G, such as high bandwidth and high mobility, bring great development space for 2B services, especially in some large coverage scenarios, such as environmental governance, smart transportation, telemedicine, ports, industrial and mining enterprises, etc., based on flexible networking solutions, to achieve rapid deployment of services.

At present, the whole world is anxious about new technological innovations and wants to seize strategic high ground. Facing 5G, industry experts basically judge that the capabilities of mobile communication networks have fully reached the level of being able to subvert industries and subvert the original production methods. Combined with the maturity of artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and the Internet of Things, 5G will surely burst out with huge energy. In the entire 5G business system, edge computing and network slicing are hailed as its two major pillars. Edge computing focuses on solving the problem of the last mile, while network slicing mainly solves the problem of end-to-end service guarantee.

Edge computing is on the rise

In recent years, operators have been trying to activate network edge resources, such as the CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) project led by AT&T in 2016, which aims to transform operators' traditional networks into cloud network services based entirely on open hardware and open software. At the same time, with the rise of IoT applications, fog computing and edge computing have created a strong demand for network edges, which has also brought business opportunities to operators.

In fact, the edge computing of operators is different from the traditional edge computing. The edge computing that operators talk about is multi-access edge computing, not traditional mobile edge computing. The goal of edge computing of operators is to push network capabilities to users and provide computing power and network services to users or content service providers through the network edge. Edge computing has formed a new ecological and value chain system. Operators can use their own favorable resources to quickly and flexibly deploy innovative applications and services to their mobile customers, enterprises and vertical industry customers.

With the full arrival of the 5G commercial era, edge computing has become a powerful technology to boost the digital transformation of 5G networks and innovative application services. Leading OTT companies, vertical industries and operators are all competing to gain a foothold.

First, cloud service providers have been penetrating into the edge. AWS released the AWS Wavelength service at the 2019 Innovation Summit, providing services directly to the edge and officially launching its Outposts product. Microsoft released the edge-oriented cloud platform Azure IoT Edge, pushing artificial intelligence and analysis services to the edge of the network. Alibaba Cloud launched the Link IoT Edge IoT edge computing solution, providing the ability to extend cloud applications to the edge. Enterprises in various vertical industries have also begun to pay attention to the field of edge computing, such as autonomous driving, industrial Internet, ports, etc. Edge computing plays a core role in their digital transformation.

On the other hand, operators are undergoing a transformation from pipeline management to computing power management. They control the entrance to the network and have a large number of existing terminal offices. This is in line with the needs of vertical industries' digital upgrades and their own resource optimization. They are bound to step up their layout of edge computing as an important business.

Edge computing is a comprehensive product format, including resource supply in the form of cloud, sinking of network functions, and edge business capabilities. However, edge resources themselves are limited. How to build an infrastructure that can cover the edge business needs of many enterprises is a major issue facing edge computing in the future. Among domestic operators, China Unicom is a pioneer in edge computing. In recent years, it has continued to deepen its edge computing field, launched an end-to-end edge computing platform, possessed integrated operation capabilities, and has emerged in multiple vertical fields.

Gartner believes that edge computing is still in its infancy, but due to the massive resource investment of hyperscale cloud providers such as AWS, Microsoft and Google, it is bound to promote the launch of enabling applications in a very short time. Gartner believes that edge computing is a decentralized supplement to public cloud products and has a symbiotic relationship with IoT. Therefore, based on the development foundation of the existing cloud and IoT, the time required for edge computing to be put into production will be very short. Operators are located between users and cloud platforms in their business model, and they occupy the core position of edge computing. They can play a role in connecting public clouds and production enterprises and opening up the industrial chain. From this perspective, the edge computing market has broad room for development.

The rise and future of network slicing

Network slicing is an important network function innovation accompanying the advent of 5G. Network slicing can be seen as the official implementation of the cloud computing model in the network. Although new technologies such as SDN, NFV, and SD-WAN have continued to move towards the goal of network as a service in recent years, compared with network slicing, these technologies are still only local network technologies. Network slicing is the technical framework for realizing end-to-end network on-demand services. It is a culmination of existing network technologies and the ideal form of network on-demand services that network workers have long pursued. Its goal is to provide users with a network with SLA guarantees.

As early as before the issuance of 5G licenses, the three major operators started to carry out business verification of network slicing, and the pilot of the existing network also began to advance at the end of 2019. Compared with the active exploration of operators, the progress of standard organizations seems to be a bit behind. The slice architecture capabilities and slice management capabilities defined by 3GPP only cover the wireless network and core network, and do not include the bearer network part. The functions and management of transmission network slices are defined in ITU-T and IETF. The technical committees of the China Communications Standards Association CCSA have definitions of standards related to network slicing, but the defined functional scope is limited to this domain, and the construction of an end-to-end standard system is in its infancy. Therefore, the most important task of network slicing now is to achieve end-to-end connectivity in terms of functional architecture and management architecture. At the same time, the relevant definitions of the standard itself have not met the requirements of engineering refinement, and equipment vendors and operators still need to gradually determine them in specific practices, and do a good job of interconnection and interoperability between different manufacturers.

The most attractive part of network slicing is the end-to-end quality assurance. In the past, users' high-quality network access needs were met by large bandwidth. However, in fact, performance indicators such as latency, network congestion, and narrow uplink bandwidth all affect the user's access experience to varying degrees. Taking the Internet link as an example, its single network model itself determines that it is only suitable for downstream browsing needs. For users to upload and publish content, the speed is much slower. In the past, only dedicated lines could guarantee the quality of user access, but the high price of dedicated lines is difficult for general enterprises to afford. Network slicing brings users a customizable network. According to their respective business characteristics, they can order suitable network slicing products and enjoy the services guaranteed by network slicing SLA, so that resources can be used effectively.

Network slicing still needs to solve many problems, such as the connection between the bearer network and the slice, breaking through the boundaries of the mobile network, providing slice capabilities for fixed-mobile convergence, and adapting to more complex network scenarios. Network slicing still has a long way to go in terms of technology and implementation, but a bright future is worth looking forward to.

Operators will expand to the 2B market based on network slicing and edge computing. It can be said that this is the greatest value of 5G. Although 5G network capabilities will also drive the development of new businesses in the 2C market such as VR and cloud games, with the rapid development of mobile communications for decades, human connections have become saturated, and the business model of the 2C market alone is no longer sufficient. Operators urgently need to shift their focus to developing the 2B market and developing a wide range of industry applications such as industry VR/AR, smart transportation, smart security, smart grid, and industrial automatic control. Edge computing and network slicing are bound to be the most effective weapons for operators in the 5G era.