Nokia upgrades DoCoMo’s IP core with new transport slicing

Nokia upgrades DoCoMo's IP core with new transport slicing
Image by TK Kurikawa | Bigstockphoto

CommsUpdate: Finland’s Nokia announced that it has provided NTT DoCoMo with an upgraded IP core and transport network slicing capabilities for its 5G services in Japan.

Nokia says the “enhancement” will allow granular SLAs, network scale, capacity and agility, along with increased power and resource efficiency.

DoCoMo has deployed Nokia’s 7750 SR-14s core routers, which the latter claims are “powered by its ground-breaking FP routing silicon”.

DoCoMo keen on slicing

In short, FP5 line cards are designed to “provide future-ready 800GE capability, increase capacity by more than three times with a 75% power saving over previous generations, and simplify network evolution with concurrent line rate FP4 and FP5 line card operation in the same system.”

Further, DoCoMo intends to maximise the routing capabilities of Nokia’s Service Router Operating System (SR OS) “for traffic engineered network slices for the granular SLAs required by DoCoMo’s customers.”

Nokia notes that its Network Services Platform (NSP) is a counterpart to DoCoMo’s segment routing solution by providing a so-called ‘Path Computation Engine (PCE)’ that uses telemetry to automatically optimise the IP network and improve SLA adherence.

Fumitaka Murayama, General Manager of DoCoMo’s Core Network Engineering Department, commented: “DoCoMo is committed to implementing slicing in 5G networks to provide networks that can respond flexibly and quickly to the diverse needs of our customers. In the transport network, a key component of this, it was essential to leverage Nokia’s IP core solutions for its high performance, functionality, flexibility and quality in meeting performance and slicing requirements.”

Nokia wraps up transport slicing tested in Singapore

Earlier this month, Nokia and Singaporean incumbent telco Singtel claimed to have pulled off Asia Pacific’s first successful implementation of IP transport slicing across an end-to-end 5G network.

The proof-of-concept trial took place in Singtel’s 5G Garage, using 5G radio, 5G core, and Nokia’s IP transport network slicing solution. The trial involved mapping the slice service attributes across 3GPP and IETF specifications.

3GPP specifies the network slicing functionalities in the 5G radio and core, while IETF specifies the IP transport equivalent.

Related article: Singtel and Nokia to trial 5G network slicing capabilities

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