NSAPs and the Revolution of 5G Network Slicing

5G isn’t really here yet, but it’s coming. And with it comes the rise of Network Software Application Providers (NSAPs). There are new business opportunities and an entirely new ecosystem thanks to NSAPs. There was a time when Communication Service Providers were afraid of becoming “dumb pipes”, but now it’s the fear of “dumb networks”, or lack of awareness of all the network features. Most Network Equipment Providers are virtualizing their traditional network appliances to run as software applications on commodity cloud infrastructure, and some NEPs are moving up the application stack to become NSAPs and offer more valuable services tied into the network. New APIs will take advantage of new 5G features coming. There will be a whole new breed of SaaS, PaaS, and Managed Service Providers who will deploy network-aware applications that are tightly integrated with new network features to add value. This is a new ecosystem that is part of the growth of Enterprise B2B Connectivity providers.

Most software applications run on a remote device and communicate with a server somewhere (like in the cloud). In between, there has always been a network, but so far, not many software applications were “network aware” nor did they need to be. (OTT streaming video relies on Adaptive Bitrate streaming that compensates for fluctuations in the network and enables quality-of-service delivery in spite of the network, but OTT ABR was created because of network weaknesses, not because of network strengths.) But NSAPs will be very “network-aware” and will rely on network slicing and other new features to enable their applications.

With 5G comes “network slicing”, which allows users to take just the right-sized slice of network capacity and data rate needed to enable their use case. Until now, users have just paid for data quotas without any view into the dynamic network availability. You just buy a 10GB data quota and you know that if you exceed your monthly quota, your service provider will throttle your bit rate. But network slicing will add a new twist to this.

Currently, you only experience the physical dynamics of the network when you notice your smartphone “5G icon” switch to “4G” or (heaven forbid!) “3G”, or when you notice the network power-bar icon drop from 5-bars down to 1-bar (or the dreaded “no service” indicator), and then you suffer annoying error notifications like the “spinning icon” telling you that your data is delayed, slow, sputtering out. I wonder what new icons will be needed to indicate “network slicing”?

It is entirely possible for you to be so close to a cellular base station that you have a solid 5-bars of power, and it might say “5G” or “4G”, but never the less, your data is slow. One reason could be there are too many users tied to that cell site, and like a rush-hour traffic jam, the data road is clogged and your data rate is too slow.

Mobile Network Operators might never explicitly sell prioritized packet handling to grant fast-track data access for VIP customers by pushing away 2nd-class customers onto more remote base stations, or just temporarily throttling their data connection because a VIP user drifted into their presence, but MNOs will eventually sell Network Slices for specific use cases to NSAPs.

Network slicing might allow a new kind of MVNO. MNOs might eventually sell Network Slices As A Service (NSaaS) much like AWS rents cloud capacity to anybody. Someday, Amazon might even become its own MVNO and bundle your Network Slice with its own edge server cloud, guaranteeing latency, data rate, and capacity. Amazon recently announced its new service, “Wavelength”, which partners with Verizon (and other international MNOs) to deploy cloud compute edge resources widely across Verizon’s network and deeply integrated to insure lowest latency. The next step would be for Amazon to become an Enterprise MVNO and sell network slices for specific use cases.

Someday, you might buy Amazon Prime Video and the service might include its own data quota as well as its own network slice. You will stream video without caring about your own data plan quota because the application will include its own data plan and quota, as well as its own network slice to enable quality of service delivery. NSAPs might contract directly with MNOs to prioritize their Applications to include some guaranteed SLA for network slices.

This already effectively happens today when IoT service providers bundle cellular sim-cards with their devices for low-data rates. There are IoT MVNOs who just sell sim-cards for IoT applications, and some contract with MNOs like Verizon and AT&T at the same time, so that the end user enjoys whichever network is available, with the cheapest data rate, or with the right capacity at any given moment. Their device roams between competing MNOs but the end user never “sees” the Verizon or AT&T brand name because they have service via an MVNO who is flipping between MNOs as needed. Today, for a specified low data-quota and low data-rate, IoT service providers can enable a device on its service for less than $10/month. Soon, NSAPs will effectively do the same thing but with much higher data-quotas and data-rates and will take advantage of new network features.

Software applications will become network-aware and know when to stay thinly connected on a 3G/4G pipe that is cheap (and slow) but then open up wide onto a 5G pipe to gobble up a large file or stream video. Network data pricing might fluctuate based on time of day (like my power utility provider charges me) or based on location (like a captive user in a sports arena) or based on situational conditions (like Uber pricing spikes due to rush hour) – so it will be advantageous to be network-aware.

Today, many Enterprise use cases involve a private network running 5G and/or hybrid with WiFi, usually tied to a campus and restricted to a tightly bounded geography. With the hyped promises of 5G come the possibility that Enterprises could buy network slices to enable their own private network to be carved out of public 5G infrastructure, dynamically, on-demand, roving with them wherever they roam, like their own space-suit bubble tethered via VPN back to their mothership. This virtually roving private network would rely on network slicing to guarantee data capacity, speed, and latency.

FirstNet is a federally mandated Emergency First Responder network that looks like a 4G MVNO. Public Safety organizations buy sim-cards from FirstNet to get their own private network with some guaranteed capacity carved out of the public cellular network. FirstNet will eventually rely on multiple MNOs for their network backbone. There have been multiple ways to enable this kind of “private network” on 3G and 4G for many years, but the addition of 5G network slicing makes this interesting.

I’m lazy in using the term “5G” as a catch-all phrase for all the interesting new features coming, and in fact, some are part of 4G Advanced. I am sure some technical specification expert wants to rant that most of us don’t know how the standards bodies work and are misusing the nomenclature. In addition to “network slicing” there are other new features:

• dual-connectivity (already deployed by AT&T and Sprint) where a device can grab 2 channels (like a 4G and a 5G channel together) to enjoy a much higher aggregate data rate
• dynamic spectrum sharing (deployed and under test by Ericsson now) that allows 4G and 5G channels to sit on top of each other and share the same base station
• carrier aggregation where multiple frequency channels can be ganged together to create a wider frequency spectrum for a “super” channel with much higher data rate
• MEC (mobile edge computing). Amazon’s Wavelength service offering might be a good example of MEC.
• New advances in peer-to-peer or device-to-device connectivity, where devices in close proximity exchange data directly instead of uploading to a base station and then downloading to a neighboring device. This has been deployed in vehicle-to-vehicle communication already via WiFi but is predicted to expand using 5G to enable more devices. The most cited use cases are for smart cities and autonomous vehicles where sensors, traffic lights, vehicles, and wearable devices may communicate peer-to-peer rather than detouring the long way around via the network.

Additionally, traditional MNOs like Verizon and AT&T are already leveraging 3rd parties to own and maintain physical base station infrastructure and real estate, and 5G opens new bands to enable non-MNO 3rd parties to operate and maintain multi-tenant networks. In some cases, these multi-tenant networks are deployed and operated by 3rd parties but will be hosted on the backend by MNOs who hold the frequency licenses and will be tied into their public networks to boost network capacity and coverage. But in other cases, new 5G bands like CBRS will be opened by the FCC and allow 3rd parties to deploy their own infrastructure and sell network access directly to Enterprise customers without an MNO.

All of these new features open the possibility of network-aware software applications to choose the “best path” for your data to reach its destination, impacted by network latency, network capacity, network pricing, network security, data rate and speed, and priority of your data packets. NSAPs will keep the network features in mind and very much integrated into their software applications.

In summary, 5G and 4G Advanced are bringing new network features that will require network-aware software applications integrated with these new features in order to leverage and maximize the benefits. NSAPs will evolve out of NEPs and also from existing SaaS, PaaS and Managed Service Providers who will need to redesign their products to leverage these new network features. Some new NSAPs will be invented to create toolkits, SDKs, and middleware platforms to manage new network features and allow all mobile software applications to access these new features. A new B2B Connectivity ecosystem will develop thanks to these new network features.