What is 5G network architecture?

5G network architecture consists of the 5G RAN (gNB radios), the transport network (fronthaul/midhaul/backhaul), and the core network that manages access, mobility, security, policy, and traffic routing. In 5G NSA, the 5G radio often relies on the 4G EPC core, which limits "true 5G" capabilities. The 5G SA core (5GC) is cloud-native and service-based, enabling features like network slicing, distributed UPF for edge/low latency, and fine-grained QoS. In practice, SA is what unlocks the full performance, automation, and service flexibility that people mean by "real 5G."

What are the benefits of 5G network slicing?

5G network slicing allows multiple virtual networks to run on the same physical infrastructure, enabling tailored performance, improved efficiency, service isolation, and support for diverse use cases such as IoT, autonomous vehicles, and enhanced mobile broadband.

What are some real-world use cases for network slicing?

Network slicing is used to support very different types of applications on one network at the same time. For example, one slice can provide ultra-reliable, low-latency connections for mission-critical uses like self-driving cars or remote surgery. Another slice might deliver high bandwidth for data-heavy services such as 4K video streaming or virtual reality, while a third could handle massive IoT deployments (like smart city sensors) with efficiency. By separating these services into their own slices, operators ensure each application gets the performance it requires, improving reliability and user experience across all use cases.

How does network slicing work in a 5G network?

Network slicing is made possible by modern 5G architecture using virtualization and intelligent network management software. Technologies like software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) enable operators to carve out multiple logical networks on the same hardware. Each slice is configured end-to-end, from the core cloud servers to the radio access network, to meet a specific service’s requirements for speed, latency, and capacity. These slices can be created, adjusted, or removed on the fly through automation and orchestration tools, so the network can adapt in real time as demand changes.

What benefits does network slicing offer to businesses and customers?

Network slicing provides significant benefits by tailoring the network to different needs: - It guarantees that each application or service gets the specific performance it needs (for example, dedicated bandwidth or low latency for critical apps), which means a better and more reliable experience for users. - It allows much more efficient use of network resources, since operators allocate exactly what each slice requires – this can reduce wasted capacity and lower operating costs. - Slicing gives operators the flexibility to quickly launch new, specialized services or adjust network resources on demand, opening up potential new revenue streams. Importantly, each slice is isolated from the others, so security is enhanced; a problem or heavy traffic in one slice won’t affect the performance of other services, keeping critical communications safe and stable.

What challenges does network slicing present, and how can they be overcome?

Network slicing introduces new challenges due to its complexity. Running many specialized slices simultaneously means operators must carefully manage resources and ensure each slice performs as intended across the entire network while keeping each one secure and isolated. To overcome these challenges, telecom providers are adopting advanced automation and orchestration systems to manage slices dynamically in real time, as well as robust analytics and monitoring tools to track performance and quickly resolve any issues. For example, Polystar offers service assurance solutions that give operators real-time visibility into each 5G slice’s performance and customer experience. These tools help ensure every slice delivers on its promised quality, allowing operators to maintain high service standards and confidently offer slice-based services to their customers.

What is Network Slicing in Telecom and Why Does It Matter?

Learn what Network slicing is and how it helps unlock the full potential of 5G and transform the ways industries connect, innovate, and improve performance.

Understanding the Business Potential and Benefits of Network Slicing and the Technology Behind It

In the era of 5G, network slicing is transforming how industries connect, innovate, and grow by delivering tailored virtual networks for diverse needs. Network slicing technology unlocks the full potential of 5G SA, driving new business opportunities and reshaping the digital landscape across sectors.

What is Network Slicing in Telecom?

Slicing is a key concept in modern telecommunications, particularly within 5G Standalone (SA) networks. It allows telecom operators to create multiple virtual networks (or "slices") on a single physical network infrastructure, each tailored to meet the specific needs of different services or applications.

It’s a powerful way to optimize how network resources are used and ensure that different services receive the right level of performance, security, and isolation.

Network slicing divides a single physical network into several, independent virtual networks or "slices," each designed to support specific types of services or applications. Each slice operates as a separate, end-to-end network, creating a network slicing architecture adapted to meet the unique requirements of a specific use case.

Real-time streaming from a live concert - via 5G SA networks

What Is Network Slicing Used For?

5G SA networks (also referred to as 5G core architecture), are designed to support slicing, enabling a growing number of foundational services. In short, these are:

Low-latency network slices for critical applications, like autonomous vehicles or remote surgery.
High-throughput slices for data-heavy applications, e.g., video streaming or virtual reality (VR).
Massive IoT slices for handling large numbers of connected devices with minimal data traffic, such as sensors in smart cities.

The Technologies Behind 5G Network Slicing

5G slicing leverages several technologies and principles from cloud computing, software-defined networking (SDN), and network function virtualization (NFV).

Here’s How 5G Network Slicing Works in Practice:

Virtualization of network resources:
- Slicing uses virtualization technologies like NFV and SDN to create virtualized instances of network resources such as bandwidth, processing power, and storage.
- These virtual resources are managed and orchestrated to create independent slices, each optimized for a particular service.
End-to-end configuration:
- Each slice spans the entire network, from the core (centralized data centers and processing) to the edge (where data is accessed by users or devices).
- The slices are configured from end to end, meaning they include all the necessary components (e.g., RAN, transport network, core network) to deliver a specific service quality and experience.
Dynamic management and orchestration:
- Network Slicing is not static; slices can be dynamically created, adjusted, or terminated based on demand. This flexibility is enabled by SDN controllers and orchestration platforms, which manage and automate the life cycles of the slices.
- Operators can allocate resources in real time to accommodate changes in network usage or requirements, such as adding bandwidth to a slice during a major event or adjusting latency requirements for a specific application.

Commercial use cases of 5G network slicing

Commercial Use Cases of Telecom Network Slicing

5G slicing enables telecom providers to create multiple virtual networks on a single physical infrastructure, each optimized for specific use cases. This flexibility allows businesses to cater to diverse needs, offering significant revenue generation and operational efficiency.

Autonomous vehicles

A dedicated low-latency, high-reliability slice ensures real-time communication between vehicles and infrastructure – essential for safe operation.

Industrial automation

Factories can use slicing to separate the networks for machinery control, monitoring, and employee communication, each with its own reliability and latency needs.

Smart Cities

IoT devices like sensors, cameras, and smart meters can operate on a dedicated slice optimized for handling massive numbers of connections with low data throughput.

Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR)

AR and VR applications require high bandwidth and low latency to deliver immersive experiences. Specific network slices can be tailored for these requirements to ensure seamless performance.

Will Network Slicing be the Engine of 5G Monetization?

Network slicing has been acclaimed as the key to future revenue growth from 5G SA network investments. However, network slicing has not been gaining momentum as rapidly as expected, and its potential has been questioned. We discussed this in a previous blog post: Unlocking the problem of slicing – what does this really mean

Each generation of mobile technology has a lifespan of around ten years before another emerges. With 2025 around the corner, we’re soon to reach the half-way point for the fifth generation.

As reported by the GSMA, 5G has now achieved approximately 20% global penetration, with some countries nearing or surpassing 50%, as highlighted in an article from the GSMA Intelligence Media Centre. We have reached this milestone more quickly than any prior generation of mobile technology. With this in mind, 5G SA and slicing might be on the way to success.

Key Benefits of Network Slicing

As already mentioned, 5G network slicing offers tailored connectivity by creating virtual networks optimized for specific applications, ensuring businesses get the performance they need for diverse use cases.

Let’s dive into the specific advantages of network slicing:

Customizable performance:

Network slicing allows operators to guarantee specific performance characteristics (e.g., latency, bandwidth, reliability) for each slice, ensuring that different applications receive the service quality they need.

Efficient use of network resources:

By tailoring each slice to its specific requirements, network slicing optimizes resource allocation, reducing waste and improving efficiency.

Operational flexibility:

Operators can dynamically create and manage slices in response to changing conditions or new service demands. This flexibility allows for rapid adaptation and innovation without the need for extensive modifications to the physical network.

Security and Isolation:

Each slice is isolated from the others, which enhances security by preventing any slice from interfering with or accessing data from another. This isolation is crucial for supporting mission-critical applications like emergency services or industrial automation.

Challenges Related to 5G Slicing

Slicing requires cloud-native 5G SA networks, which are more complex for operators to manage and monitor.

Complexity management
Managing multiple slices dynamically, each with its own requirements and performance metrics, requires advanced orchestration and network monitoring systems.
Interoperability
Ensuring that network slices work seamlessly across multiple network segments and devices from different vendors can be challenging, especially as networks become more heterogeneous.
Security management
While slices are isolated, ensuring end-to-end security for each slice, especially in critical applications, requires careful planning and robust security protocols.

New Demands on Customer Experience Assurance

When offering advanced services based on 5G slicing, users’ expectations for the experience they receive increase accordingly. Simply put, customers using slice-based services pay more and have higher requirements for connectivity and latency. As a result, network monitoring and analytics become even more important.

Legacy Systems Must Continue to Function

Many MNOs are now realizing they need to invest in updated software for monitoring network performance and data analytics reflecting the user experience in real time. This is critical for successful 5G monetization.

Operators will find themselves in a situation where their legacy systems must continue to function alongside new solutions for advanced 5G SA networks and network slicing services.

Why is Network Slicing Important?

Network slicing is a transformative capability in modern telecom networks, particularly with the rollout of 5G SA networks.

It allows operators to provide customizable, efficient, and secure network experiences tailored to various use cases, driving innovation and optimizing resource use.

By enabling flexible, on-demand creation of dedicated network slices, telecom operators can meet the specific requirements of a wide range of industries and applications, from IoT to mission-critical communications and immersive media.

Polystar's monitoring software interface on desktop

Service Assurance for 5G Slicing

At Polystar, we deliver real-time insights into CX, network performance, and service quality. Our Service Assurance Solution span technologies from 2G to 5G SA, ensuring the superior CX required for a successful 5G launch and sustained excellence beyond.

With our proven expertise, we’re already empowering over 30 CSPs globally to monitor 5G SA networks effectively. Our advanced, vendor-neutral telco analytics seamlessly integrate with our monitoring solutions, providing comprehensive visibility and actionable intelligence.

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Q & A - 5G Network Slicing

5G network architecture consists of the 5G RAN (gNB radios), the transport network (fronthaul/midhaul/backhaul), and the core network that manages access, mobility, security, policy, and traffic routing.

In 5G NSA, the 5G radio often relies on the 4G EPC core, which limits “true 5G” capabilities.

The 5G SA core (5GC) is cloud-native and service-based, enabling features like network slicing, distributed UPF for edge/low latency, and fine-grained QoS. In practice, SA is what unlocks the full performance, automation, and service flexibility that people mean by “real 5G.”
5G network slicing allows multiple virtual networks to run on the same physical infrastructure, enabling tailored performance, improved efficiency, service isolation, and support for diverse use cases such as IoT, autonomous vehicles, and enhanced mobile broadband.
Network slicing is used to support very different types of applications on one network at the same time.

For example, one slice can provide ultra-reliable, low-latency connections for mission-critical uses like self-driving cars or remote surgery. Another slice might deliver high bandwidth for data-heavy services such as 4K video streaming or virtual reality, while a third could handle massive IoT deployments (like smart city sensors) with efficiency.

By separating these services into their own slices, operators ensure each application gets the performance it requires, improving reliability and user experience across all use cases.
Network slicing is made possible by modern 5G architecture using virtualization and intelligent network management software.

Technologies like software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) enable operators to carve out multiple logical networks on the same hardware.

Each slice is configured end-to-end, from the core cloud servers to the radio access network, to meet a specific service’s requirements for speed, latency, and capacity.

These slices can be created, adjusted, or removed on the fly through automation and orchestration tools, so the network can adapt in real time as demand changes.
Network slicing provides significant benefits by tailoring the network to different needs:
- It guarantees that each application or service gets the specific performance it needs (for example, dedicated bandwidth or low latency for critical apps), which means a better and more reliable experience for users.
- It allows much more efficient use of network resources, since operators allocate exactly what each slice requires – this can reduce wasted capacity and lower operating costs.
- Slicing gives operators the flexibility to quickly launch new, specialized services or adjust network resources on demand, opening up potential new revenue streams. Importantly, each slice is isolated from the others, so security is enhanced; a problem or heavy traffic in one slice won’t affect the performance of other services, keeping critical communications safe and stable.
Network slicing introduces new challenges due to its complexity.

Running many specialized slices simultaneously means operators must carefully manage resources and ensure each slice performs as intended across the entire network while keeping each one secure and isolated.

To overcome these challenges, telecom providers are adopting advanced automation and orchestration systems to manage slices dynamically in real time, as well as robust analytics and monitoring tools to track performance and quickly resolve any issues.

For example, Polystar offers service assurance solutions that give operators real-time visibility into each 5G slice’s performance and customer experience.

These tools help ensure every slice delivers on its promised quality, allowing operators to maintain high service standards and confidently offer slice-based services to their customers.

Would you like to hear more about Service Assurance for 5G SA?

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What is Network Slicing in Telecom and Why Does It Matter?