Telstra announces world first proof-of-value engine for 5G slicing

Telstra today announced it will bring a world leading 5G slicing product to market this year, made possible by a newly developed proof-of-value mobility analytics engine.

5G slicing allows Telstra to create multiple virtual networks with different performance characteristics on the same physical network, enabling customised solutions for different customer needs.

The proof-of-value engine analyses 5G slicing traffic every second to check if a customer has received the committed performance promised.  If they have, they are billed for this performance, or otherwise not charged for the service received.

Shailin Sehgal, Telstra Executive Network Applications and Cloud said, “this solves a critical piece in the puzzle to deploying 5G slicing to enterprise customers across different industries, ensuring transparency and accountability around specific speeds and uptime as part of the network slice.

“What’s groundbreaking about this development is that it allows us to commit to a minimum performance level for a customer, then measure and report on the slice performance to know if the slice is performing as designed.”

In addition to providing committed performance, Telstra’s 5G slicing product uses slice templates to uniquely tailor a slice to a customer use case and specific performance requirements, such as minimum and maximum speed, security and latency.

“The customisation we can layer on our 5G slice technology makes it especially useful for a wide variety of use cases, from performance for transport networks or construction sites, to public safety technology such as video surveillance”, said Mr Sehgal.

Hindmarsh, one of Australia’s leading construction, real estate development, retirement services and capital management companies, is the first customer to trial the new solution.

Mark Crameri, Hindmarsh IT Manager said, “Telstra’s new 5G fixed wireless network slicing link was deployed at one of our heaviest use sites with over 30 staff, each with laptops and phones, along with tablets and video conferencing equipment.

“To date the reliability of the new link has been tremendous, access to our business-critical systems is incredibly fast, not to mention video conferencing and internet access, making it faster and easier to work productively on site.”

To enhance network performance and ensure optimal configuration, Telstra is working with Casa Systems for their cutting-edge Realtime Fastlane Accelerator (RFA) technology and User Equipment Route Selection Policy (URSP) 5G standard, designed to dynamically route different types of traffic to different slices based on a network template.

For example, Telstra could create a network template for IP telephony applications that Casa Systems devices will support.

“With our dynamic network slicing capabilities, mobile operators can deliver an enhanced experience for customers by offering tailored service plans to meet the customer’s individual requirements”, said Steve Collins, SVP of Access Devices, Casa Systems.

“Our 5G Fixed Wireless and Industrial IoT products, including our Realtime Fastlane Accelerator dynamic network slicing capability, deliver a cost-effective 5G solution, keeping the customer front of mind to address most use cases.

Telstra also worked with Ericsson on a solution to operationalise network slicing, designing experiences and delivering a service to meet the needs of specific customer use cases.

Emilio Romeo, Ericsson’s Head of Australia & New Zealand, said: “Ericsson is driving differentiated service offerings to enable monetisation whilst providing a superior customer experience, and this is embedded across the end-to-end network.

“This groundbreaking service offering, based on proof-of-value, is a great example of how Telstra has combined the underlaying technology provided by Ericsson for observability and service assurance with their creativity to give the best offering available to customers.”

Telstra’s approach to 5G Slicing will be on display within the Ericsson Hall at Mobile World Congress from Monday 26 February to Thursday 29 February 2024.