Public defense: Bruno Dzogovic

In addition to current 2G, 3G and 4G smartphones with demand for increasing data rates, mobility and coverage, the next generation 5G mobile system is expected to be able to support billions of Internet of Things (IoT) devices having different quality of service (QoS) requirements. 

Typically, there will be a vast number of primitive and low‐complexity low‐power devices of massive machine-type communications (mMTC) like electricity meters, parking meters, fixed or wearable devices such as various sensors. 

Further, there will be ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC) devices that are used in process automation and require ultra-high reliability and extremely low latency. 

Another use case is the enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), which encompasses the regular mobile phone subscription with improved data rates and quality of service for the subscribers and finally the V2X or vehicle-to-everything communications that aims to provide connectivity for the future autonomous transportation.

To fulfil the expectations, the 5G mobile system relies on the concept of Network Slicing. According to 3GPP [5][6], Network Slicing is a concept to allow differentiated treatment depending on each customer requirements. 

With slicing, it is possible for Mobile Network Operators (MNO) to consider customers as belonging to different tenant types with each having different service requirements that govern in terms of what slice types of each tenant is eligible to use based on Service Level Agreement (SLA) and subscriptions. 

While the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) provides a more network-focused definition stating that “network slices may differ for supported features and network functions optimizations” the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G PPP) adopts a business oriented view mandating that “network slice is a composition of adequately configured network functions, network applications, and the underlying cloud infrastructure (physical, virtual or even emulated resources, like for example Radio-Access Network (RAN) resources), that are bundled together to meet the requirements of a specific use case, e.g., bandwidth, latency, processing, and resiliency, coupled with a business purpose” [4].

Indeed, there is no clear consensus about what a network slice is and how it could be established. Consequently, it is quite uncertain that Network Slicing can be the “silver bullet” that can solve all the problems and pave the way for a future 5G Cellular IoT. This research work is aiming at shedding light on the concept of Network Slice and clarifying on whether it can manage to deliver all its promises and meet the expectations.