Groundbreaking 5G solution paves the way for new digital services

Image caption: Security as a service enabled by this multi-vendor setup was tested by the Norwegian Armed Forces. Photo: Johan Ludvig Holst/ The Norwegian Armed Forces

Most of today’s commercial 5G deployments worldwide are based on 5G Non-Standalone (NSA), where the 5G deployment is dependent on existing 4G infrastructure. To achieve the full benefits of 5G, such as network slicing, low latency, enhanced security, network data analytics, carriers are now starting to deploy 5G Standalone (SA) in which there is no dependency on 4G.

“The main component of 5G-SA is the 5G mobile core, the ‘brain’ of the 5G system. Unfortunately, most 5G core deployments are still single vendor dependent, with strong dependencies on that vendor’s underlying proprietary architecture. This single-vendor dependency can be a killer for innovation. It restricts open collaboration from the broader 5G ecosystem of companies developing new technology, use cases, and services that the market expects,” explains Patrick Waldemar, Vice President and Head of Technology in Telenor Research.

As an industry first, Telenor, along with partners, have established to build a truly multi-vendor, 5G core environment running on a vendor-neutral platform. The multi-vendor environment consists of best of breed Network Functions from Oracle, Casa-Systems, Enea and Kaloom, all running on Red Hat Openshift, the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform.

“To protect the 5G infrastructure from cyber threats, we deployed Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud Compute, and their Next Generation Firewall is also securing Internet connectivity for mobile devices. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is being used as a scalable automation system, while Emblasoft is providing automated network testing capabilities. The 5G New Radio (NR) is from Huawei,” says Waldemar.

Telenor’s 5G-SA trial, with commercially available components, proves that a truly multi-vendor environment is indeed possible.

“We believes that such a multi-vendor environment will stimulate innovation, reduce cost of the infrastructure, increase competition and accelerate the development of an open 5G-ecosystem which in turn will enable a range of new services for Telenor’s consumers, industry and government customers,” says Waldemar.

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