Is Network Slicing a Feature or a Service?

Will network slicing, a new feature of virtualized 5G and other network cores, enable mobile operators to move into new parts of the value chain? Put another way, can service quality assurances made possible by network slicing do so? 

Or is network slicing a platform upon which to create such new roles? Some, including Netrounds, believe network slicing, almost by definition, moves mobile operators up the value chain, if not necessarily into new roles within the value chain.

That is the challenge. Is there enough demand for service level agreements to provide significant revenue-generating value? In the absence of other changes--taking on new roles in the ecosystem, for example--is QoS enough? Or is network slicing “necessary but not sufficient” for value creation?

In other words, is network-slicing-enabled QoS so valuable that customers will pay extra for it, and if so, how much? Is that move up the value chain--providing more value--enough? Or, in the end, must that also be coupled with moves into other parts of the ecosystem, such as applications and platforms, for example?

To use the personal computing analogy, are better “speeds and feeds” sufficient to drive revenue growth, or not?

To be sure, network slicing does offer some fundamentally new capabilities compared to previous generations of mobile networks. Up to a point, virtual private networks can be optimized around some relevant performance characteristics, end to end. 

source: Nokia

A mobile broadband network--possibly a business-to-business mobile virtual network operator--could be optimized for bandwidth. An autonomous vehicle network (aerial or terrestrial vehicles) might be optimized for latency. A sensor network might be optimized for low power consumption. 

Perhaps a gaming network is optimized for bandwidth, latency and jitter. Stadium and entertainment venues might be optimized for device density and bandwidth. 

source: SDX Central

In other cases, perhaps it is the billing method that is new: pay per use models, for example. Dynamic or temporary services are another potential use case, with at least some potential for incremental revenue. 

As always, there are challenges, not the least of which is that there always are different ways to meet each of those needs. Edge computing, for example, can provide the ultra-low-latency or bandwidth assurance features. Small cells can provide the device density features. 

Perhaps it is the on-demand, dynamic provisioning and rating that provides the biggest differentiator, if the cost of spinning up and spinning down services is low enough. 

Still, there will be other ways of creating customized networks built to support specific applications. Edge computing, in particular, might be a functional substitute for network slicing, for example.