BT and Ericsson agree deal to deploy cloud native dual-mode 5G Core

In April 2020, British Telecommunication PLC (BT) and Ericsson signed a deal to deploy Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core, a fully container-based cloud native Mobile Packet Core for 4G, 5G Non-standalone and 5G Standalone services as a single fully integrated core.

The solution, delivered on BT’s Network Cloud, will form a key component in BT’s move to a single converged IP network. It will incorporate network orchestration and automation, including continuous delivery and integration processes, and it will be integrated into BT’s existing customer experience management platforms.

BT decided on Ericsson to replace Huawei’s equipment from the core of its 5G network after evaluating different 5G core network vendors. In January 2020, the UK government had decided to ban Huawei from the country’s core network. Huawei is allowed to supply gear for the UK’s 5G radio access networks (RANs), but it will be restricted to a 35{b28ae05319d94bff0b4d65c5a9f4524dd588360f05c61ef440e1608e0a1c4144} cap per operator in this part of the 5G network.

Further information
Ericsson press release – https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2020/4/bt-and-ericsson-join-up-to-deliver-cloud-native-dual-mode-5g-core

Editorial

Dear readers,

Artificial Intelligence is already used in 4G and the currently deployed 5G networks. That said there is still a huge potential for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve management and performance of Beyond 5G networks, which are expected to be developed in the next ten years. AI technologies offer the potential to efficiently address the challenges of complex 5G and Beyond 5G networks, which transport ever-increasing amounts of data.

A number of European research projects are addressing these challenges. Eurescom is involved in some of these projects, which have brought about considerable technological advances. Thus, we considered the time right to dedicate the cover theme of this issue of Eurescom message to Artificial Intelligence for 5G and Beyond and have a look at some of the achievements as well as the remaining challenges.

In the first article of the cover theme, Eurescom message editor Anastasius Gavras and Eurescom project manager and AI expert Dr. Maria Barros Weiss present an overview on Artificial Intelligence for 5G and Beyond. The next article presents Horizon 2020 research project ARIADNE, which investigates the application of AI, and especially Machine Learning (ML), in Beyond 5G scenarios within the novel D-band frequency range.

In an exclusive interview for Eurescom message, Prof. Dr. Hans Dieter Schotten from the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence, DFKI, talks about his vision on the future use of AI in networks and the challenges ahead.

In the final article of the cover theme, Salvatore Spadaro from the Technical University of Catalonia and Kenneth Nagin from IBM Israel explain the innovative approach of Horizon 2020 research project SliceNet for cognitive network slice management.

This edition of Eurescom message also includes a variety of further articles on different, ICT-related topics. See, for example, the new opinion article by Eurescom director David Kennedy on the great expectations towards living and working online in his column “The Kennedy Perspective”. See also our “News in brief” section, which this time features a 5G deal between BT and Ericsson as well as the latest trends in European patent applications. Finally, in the latest “A bit beyond” article you can read about the tribulations of online meetings from the home office.

You may notice that the “Events” section in this magazine issue is a bit different compared to previous editions. We would have liked to report about MWC 2020 in Barcelona, which was cancelled due to COVID-19, and a few other major ICT events, which have been turned into virtual events for the same reason. Instead of reporting about events happening in locations like Barcelona and Dublin, we decided for the first time in the history of our magazine to feature online events.

So far we have abstained from doing it, as we consider photos of people talking on site to an audience and discussing with each other in person a crucial element for attractive event reports that readers may care about weeks after the event has happened. However, due to the fact that practically all events taking place now are virtual, we reconsidered our editorial policy. Thus, we decided to feature 5G-related webinars organised by two of our projects, SliceNet and 5G EVE. The advantage compared to most traditional in-person events is that these webinars have been recorded, and you can watch the video recordings online any time you wish.

My editorial colleagues and I hope you will find value in this edition of Eurescom message, and we would appreciate your comments on the current issue as well as suggestions for future issues. Enjoy reading this magazine issue and stay safe!

Milon Gupta
Editor-in-chief

Sn@pshot

World’s first graduation ceremony with avatars

On 28 March 2020, the world’s first graduation ceremony with avatars took place in Tokyo, Japan. Kenichi Ohmae, president of the Graduate School at BBT University, handed over diplomas to two “newme” communication avatars, who represented the graduates. The avatars provided by ANA Holdings were remotely operated by the graduates. Due to the coronavirus lockdown, they were not able to attend the ceremony in person.

Further information is available on the BBT website at https://bbt.ac/news/news/010344.html

Great Expectations – The growing internet dependency

In the early days of the internet our expectations were limited – even Tim Berners-Lee considered his invention of the World Wide Web as just something “to allow information sharing within internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by support groups”. Since the international fear of COVID-19 has taken effect, we expect the internet to be the saving grace for humanity. In fact our dependency on our online connectivity is such that in 2016 the UN declared, in a non-binding resolution, that “the same rights people have offline must also be protected online”. But now that we really need it, are we ready to move our lives online?

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Artificial Intelligence for 5G and Beyond – an overview

The advent of powerful ICT and the availability of large amounts of data have triggered an increased interest in the discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The digital transformation of economy and society has brought data ecosystems to the core of many vertical industries. This has catapulted AI from niche discipline to the front of recent ICT research trends, including network research.

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AI for Beyond 5G

Systems beyond 5G are set to shift the network communication paradigm, which will heavily affect the information and communication sector. 5G is expected to deliver increased connectivity, highly fault-tolerant communication, and maximum spectral efficiency while keeping latencies at negligible limits. The aspiration is to transform the current 5G wireless thinking from focusing on “local” improvements (e.g. isolating the radio access level or the resource management level) to realizing a vision of pervasive mobile virtual services through network-managing computing and connectivity functions in an integrated way. This beyond 5G transformation envisions bringing together novel radio architectures and an Artificial Intelligence (AI) network approach across various tiers of the technology stack and deployment scenarios.

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“AI-enabled services and applications will significantly benefit from 5G”

Interview with Hans Dieter Schotten from DFKI: Artificial Intelligence has become fashionable in all areas of technological development, including communication networks. How realistic are expectations that AI will significantly improve 5G and beyond networks? When will it happen? And what are the obstacles? Eurescom message editor-in-chief Milon Gupta asked someone about it who has been at the forefront of network development for a long time – professor Hans Dieter Schotten, head of the research department Intelligent Networks at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, DFKI.

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Cognitive network slice management

One of the enablers of 5G and beyond networks is the provisioning of network slices with proper Quality of Experience (QoE) guarantees to meet the requirements of vertical use cases. It poses several challenges to the proper management of the network slices. This is particularly challenging when provisioning multi-domain 5G slices in which several network service providers are required to provision their end-to-end slices.

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Public premiere of 5G EVE Portal

Live demo at webinar


Manuel Lorenzo from Ericsson Spain


Giada Landi from Nextworks

In a webinar on 27 February 2020, the 5G EVE Portal was for the first time demonstrated live to the interested public. 47 participants, mostly from vertical use-case (ICT-19) projects of the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G PPP), attended the live demo of the 5G EVE portal and validation framework.

The webinar was moderated by Mauro Boldi from TIM, the coordinator of 5G EVE. Originally, the 5G EVE Portal was planned to be presented at MWC 2020 in Barcelona. Due to the cancellation of the event, the 5G EVE team had decided to present the demo online instead.

After the welcome and overview by Mauro Boldi, Manuel Lorenzo from Ericsson Spain, technical manager of 5G EVE, briefly explained the roadmap of the 5G EVE validation platform for 2020 and 2021. The roadmap involves three major activity areas: (i) platform validation, (ii) cooperation with ICT-19 projects, and (iii) continued platform development.


Overview on how to use the 5G EVE portal


Demonstration on how to change the status of an experiment

The demo was presented by Giada Landi from Nextworks, who is deputy technical manager of 5G EVE. Before going into the actual live demo, she gave an introduction to the 5G EVE experimentation workflow, which consists of four phases: (i) test design, (ii) test preparation, (iii) test execution and monitoring, and (iv) test performance evaluation and analysis. She went on to explain the key roles in the experimentation workflow:

  • Vertical: actor with the knowledge of the service to be tested, including SLAs and service components.
  • Verticals’ VNF (Virtualized Network Function) provider: actor who provides the VNF packages for the vertical applications.
  • Experiment developer: actor responsible for specifying the blueprints associated to an experiment, as well as the associated NFV network services descriptors. This user has the knowledge about the 5G EVE infrastructure and expertise about NFV network service modelling.
  • Experimenter: actor responsible for the request of an experiment and the assessment of its results; defines the characteristics of an experiment starting from its blueprint, requests the deployment of related virtual environment and experiment execution and analyses results and KPIs.
  • Site manager: system and infrastructure administrator for a 5G EVE site.

In addition, Giada Landi explained the basic concepts and terminology, including Experiment Blueprint, Network Service Descriptor, and Experiment Descriptor. After the introduction to the 5G EVE experimentation workflow, she logged into the portal and went live through the steps of setting up an experiment on the 5G EVE Portal.


Graphical user interface of the 5G EVE portal

About 5G EVE

5G EVE, the ‘5G European Validation platform for Extensive trials’, is a European infrastructure research project within phase 3 of the 5G Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership (5G PPP). The project ambition is to be instrumental towards the pervasive roll-out of 5G end-to-end networks in Europe. 5G EVE started on 1st July 2018 and runs for 36 months. The 15.7 million euro project is coordinated by TIM and is co-funded by the European Commission under the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.

Further information:
Video recording of the 5G EVE Portal demo – https://youtu.be/sv0CJHX12vA
5G EVE website – https://www.5g-eve.eu