Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Is Network Slicing Underneath Vodafone UK's 5G Service Plans?

It seems highly likely that one of the most-important benefits of Vodafone UK's virtualized network is the ability to use network slicing to create consumer data access tiers that differ by speed.

The 5G launch by Vodafone UK contains at least a couple of novel developments. For starters, Vodafone’s 5G will come in speed tiers. Vodafone Unlimited Max features unlimited mobile data usage at speeds as fast as the device and the network will allow. 


Vodafone Unlimited offers speeds of up to 10 Mbps. Vodafone Unlimited Lite supports speeds up to 2 Mbps.




For customers accustomed to buying their data usage as a variable cost, the new Vodafone approach shifts offer differentiation to speed, much as fixed network offers do. Pricing is differentiated by maximum downstream speed, not usage buckets. 


The other development is that usage is unlimited for all plans, removing the usage allowance as the key difference between plans. 


Vodafone has not specifically said how it is creating the tiers, but network slicing network slicing is one conceivable approach, where customers are different plans essentially use different network slices, some of us would guess. 




No comments:

Many Winners and Losers from Generative AI

Perhaps there is no contradiction between low historical total factor annual productivity gains and high expected generative artificial inte...