A1 Austria, Nokia, and Microsoft have achieved a groundbreaking milestone in the telecommunications industry by completing the first-ever trial of 5G edge cloud network slicing.
This innovative deployment, conducted in Vienna, Austria, integrates Nokia’s 5G edge slicing solution with Microsoft Azure managed edge compute on A1’s live commercial network.
The trial showcased the potential of edge cloud network slicing, allowing A1 to deliver enterprise cloud applications to mobile users over a high-capacity, secure, and low-latency network. In a real-time demonstration, A1 transmitted live HD video streams from multiple mobile devices using Multicasting.io’s streaming mobile platform, leveraging the Azure edge infrastructure.
This revolutionary solution opens doors for various industries, including retail, media, utilities, healthcare, and transportation, offering tailored network slices to support specific customer use cases and applications based on performance, quality, traffic routing, latency, and security requirements. Moreover, it presents mobile operators with opportunities to generate new revenue streams.
Nokia’s 5G Edge Slicing solution empowers operators to harness the capabilities of both slicing and edge cloud, delivering unparalleled value to their customers. During the trial, network slices were implemented across Devices, RAN, Transport, Core, and Edge Cloud Applications, ensuring an enhanced enterprise user experience characterized by low latency, high bandwidth, network performance, quality, security, and manageability.
Additionally, Nokia’s solution offers a sliced mobile broadband VPN in selected business areas, such as campuses or city environments, supporting multiple enterprise VPN deployments on the same 4G/5G network. This scalable infrastructure is compatible with all 4G/5G devices, including new URSP (UE Route Selection Policy) capable multi-slice smartphones, catering to diverse application needs.
The trial, executed with Azure support, deployed Azure managed edge compute at A1’s data center in Vienna, with connectivity to the Azure region in Austria.
Marcus Grausam, CEO of A1, expressed excitement about leading the industry in deploying edge cloud network slicing, emphasizing the solution’s ability to deliver secure, reliable, and high-performance enterprise VPN services integrated with edge cloud applications over A1’s 4G/LTE and 5G networks.
Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, emphasized how edge cloud network slicing offers customers the best of both worlds, seamlessly integrating network slicing with edge cloud applications to enhance the enterprise customer experience.
Silvia Candiani, Vice President of Telecommunications and Media at Microsoft, emphasized Microsoft’s commitment to redefining connectivity and providing opportunities for industry leaders like A1 and Nokia to leverage the vast Microsoft ecosystem of enterprise developers and solution providers to drive new monetization efforts.
