Kathy Gibson is at Mobile World Congress 2022 – Software-defined services are at the heart of new network slicing capabilities that Telia launched today with its customer Sandvik, a Swedish multinational engineering company.
Rainer Deutschmann, group chief operating officer at Telia, explains that the launch is the first time that a customer is using a modernised network to dynamically configure and then run the workload on either private cloud or hyperscaler infrastructure before populating it back to the application.
“VMware is one of the foundational fabrics, together with a Nokia standalone core,” he says.
“The customer was nervous about security, but they can see there is total separation of the traffic from the app to the data.”
Nokia today demonstrated the 5G Edge Slicing on a live commercial network with Cellcom and Telia.
Nokia and Telia are running a live trial in Tampere, Finland together with Sandvik, demonstrating how next-generation 5G Edge Slicing functions can operate with different mining equipment and digital applications.
Nokia’s 5G Edge Slicing solution enables operators to keep critical business data traffic local while running slice management, control, and assurance on existing central mobile data centres ensuring cost and operational efficiency.
It is also scalable, and the same virtualised network infrastructure can be used by several customers in the same area, for example, in a business campus containing multiple companies.
Jari Collin, chief technology officer of Telia Finland, comments: “We are delighted to be the first to deploy the first-ever 5G Edge Slicing solution together with Nokia and our important customer Sandvik, who is investing heavily in digital mining technologies and the technology environment in its test mine in Tampere.
“Our advanced 5G network supports our customers’ business by enabling new kinds of services and making the network more efficient. We will continue to develop innovations and the latest applications as our mission is to bring the opportunities of 5G to our customers.”
A distributed and sliced 5G edge architecture creates partnering opportunities for mobile operators and Cloud Service and Infrastructure Providers. High-performing virtualised networks enable service providers to bring edge cloud application platforms closer to enterprise customers.
Co-location and infrastructure companies’ facilities can also be utilised in the edge slicing deployments. 5G Edge Slicing combined with Nokia’s new Adaptive Cloud Networking solution, which part of its scope is automating the edge cloud network, opens additional opportunities for service providers to create value for enterprises.