Telefonica demos VR services on 5G network with Huawei

Huawei and Telfonica 5G at MWC 2018 Telefonica has conducted a demonstration of the industry’s first VR service using 5G end-to-end (E2E) network slicing technology.

The results of the 5G field test boost 1.5 Gbps data rate and guaranteed E2E latency of 4 ms, Huawei, the technology partner of Telefonica, said.

Visitors at MWC 2018 got an opportunity to enjoy the immersive 5G interaction experience. Interactive VR – powered on 5G networks — will be introduced to gaming, education, entertainment, e-Health, industry design etc., bringing new business opportunities to mobile operators.

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Enrique Blanco, Telefonica’s Global CTIO, said: “5G technological development has entered a new stage. Telefonica and Huawei will continue to step up innovation in both technologies and applications.”

Huawei said this demonstration used 5G E2E networks, including the access network, core network, transport network, and terminals. Telefonica engineers got an idea of how 5G network slicing can enable on-demand diversified services and ensure large bandwidth and low latency, helping operators to achieve 5G business success.

Telefonica CXOs used Huawei E2E 5G pre-commercial products, including base stations, core network, transport network, and customer premise equipment (CPE, the wireless device located at the customer’s premises).

The 5G base stations adopt Huawei SingleRAN hardware and software architecture — in line with 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standards. These base stations, operating on the 3.7 GHz band, feature Massive MIMO and beamforming technologies, while supporting 64 radio frequency channels and 24 streams.

Huawei engineers integrated various 5G NR technologies such as coding, frame structures, numerology, and waveforms (F-OFDM) in these base stations, in order to addresses different SLA requirements of bandwidth, latency, reliability for different services.

Huawei deployed the 5G core network over Telefonica UNICA infrastructure. The engineers have re-used virtualized 4G evolved packet core (vEPC) ensuring smooth evolution capabilities. 5G core network — based on the Service Based Architecture (SBA) architecture — allows engineers to independently deploy and upgrade each service logic.

Engineers have deployed the control plane in a centralized data center to improve signaling efficiency, and the user plane in the data center at the edge of the network for rapid local service provisioning.

Huawei said the 5G core network also employs Multi-Access Edge Computing to reduce service latency, by locating the application servers at the edge hence allowing very fast service response to the customer’s demands.

The 5G transport network leverages on new link and network protocols for simpler, more flexible, and more efficient connections. It uses the PAM4-based cost-effective 50 GE port, reducing the 5G network construction costs.

Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) provides network slicing isolation, ensuring quality of services for mobile operators. Other network protocols, like SR or EVPN will provide a unified service bearer model.

This VR demonstration on a 5G network features the world’s first 5G commercial CPE. This CPE is based on the 3GPP standards and chip architecture with compact design, low power consumption, and high portability.