Singtel and Nokia announced an agreement for developing and trialling 5G network slicing capabilities.

The 5G network slicing trials will be conducted and tested with organisations later this year in Singapore.

Nokia’s Network as a Service (NaaS) approach provides customers with highly customisable services for 5G use cases and applications. The NaaS platform will give Singtel control and visibility of services across the network while addressing specific 5G needs of enterprises with speed, efficiency and flexibility.

Singtel will be able to offer an enterprise customer a secured network slice on demand, in a matter of minutes, with assured security and network performance in latency, bandwidth and availability. Currently, such a network service would take weeks or months to implement.

Mark Chong, group chief technology officer of Singtel, said: “Network slicing will open up a realm of exciting possibilities for our enterprise customers to go to market quicker with new and innovative 5G-powered services, such as virtual reality, IoT and smart factory applications.”

Bhaskar Gorti, president of Nokia Software, said: “Singtel is taking the right approach, re-fitting their service delivery and assurance processes and tools. This move to a 5G digital services infrastructure ensures they can stay ahead of customer demand and even service new customer segments.”