Industry giants’ network slicing success

Vodafone and Huawei have conducted a field trial of fixed access network slicing.

The successful test, which was carried out at Vodafone Ireland, saw separate consumer and enterprise virtual network ‘slices’ being created on a live fibre to the home (FTTH) network.

The consumer slice facilitated broadband internet and Vodafone TV services, with the enterprise portion carrying OneNet business services, including voice. The trial was carried out using Huawei’s MA5800 smart optical line terminal.

Matt Beal, director of strategy and architecture, Vodafone Group Technology said: “Virtualisation of the fixed access network will help us build and fill FTTH networks in a more cost-effective way, taking advantage of new operating models where both Vodafone and its deployment partners are able to differentiate their services over the shared fibre infrastructure.”

President of Huawei Access Network, Jeff Wang said: “We are delighted to continue to collaborate with Vodafone on network slicing. The solution can provide independent operation and maintenance management for multi-services bearing.”

Architecture and equipment requirements for fixed access network sharing (FANS) has recently been standardised by the Broadband Forum, via its TR-370 Technical Report. This was – according to the company - led by Vodafone Group.