Telecom industry and European academia join forces to develop a multi-service mobile network architecture for the 5G era

Telecom industry and European academia join forces to develop a multi-service mobile network architecture for the 5G era

A group of 13 firms, mobile operators and academic institutions are working together to create an adaptive network architecture for 5G, combining different network technologies to serve current and future applications.

5G NORMA (5G Novel Radio Multiservice adaptive network Architecture) is a part of European Union’s (EU) 5G Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership (5GPPP). The consortium will work over the next 30 months, from July 2015 to create, and disseminate innovative concepts on the mobile network architecture for the 5G era.

Among the participants are the vendors and IT companies, including Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, Nokia Networks, ATOS, Azcom Technology, Nomor Research and Real Wireless. There are also operators like Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Telefonica in the endeavor. Among the academic partners are the University Kaiserslautern in Germany, Kings College London and University Carlos III Madrid.

“5G is not only about new radio access technology, network architecture will play an important role as well. 5G networks will have to be programmable, software driven and managed holistically to enable a diverse range of services in a profitable way. With 5G NORMA, the consortium aims to ensure economic sustainability of the network operation and open opportunities for new players, while leveraging a future-proof architecture in a cost- and energy-effective way,” said Dr. Werner Mohr, Chairman of the 5GPPP Association.

Azcom Technology, a leading player in LTE wireless communication solutions plans to utilize 5G NORMA concepts and related technologies to investigate potential network architecture options and implement a reference platform that includes HW and SW that demonstrates one or more 5G NORMA concepts.

“Azcom has a suite of software products and reference LTE eNodeB and EPC solutions that can be readily used to implement these concepts” said Dr. Satish Ananthaiyer, EVP of Business Development.

Azcom also plans to collaborate with other consortium partners to showcase end-to-end over-the-air scenarios with commercial UEs that demonstrate benefits of 5G NORMA concepts to real world use cases. These implementations can potentially serve as a reference to the final 5G solution.

Also read: Global: ITU defines 5G to be 20Gbps network, open to public by 2020

A need for separate architecture arises as cases like remote control of robots, support for billions of sensors and things etc demand super fast and reliable internet. For the purpose, it will incorporate existing mobile standards and Wi-Fi into a multi-technology network that will require flexible management. This can be made possible by breaking away from the previous rigid architecture and adopting a more responsive approach.