SK TelecomがIntelと5GスタンドアロンコアR＆Dをワックス化

SK TelecomとIntelは本日、5Gスタンドアロン（SA）モバイルコアでの共同研究開発に関する最新情報を共有しました。両社によると、インテルの第2世代Xeonスケーラブルプロセッサーとイーサネット800シリーズネットワークアダプターを使用して、3GPPのリリース15に基づく5G SAユーザープレーン機能（UPF）が開発されたという。SK Telecom and Intel today shared some updates about their collaborative research and development on a 5G standalone (SA) mobile core. Intel’s second-generation Xeon Scalable processors and Ethernet 800 Series network adaptors were used to develop a 5G SA user plane function (UPF) based on the 3GPP’s Release 15, the companies said. “Aside from the specification, the research and development focused on the software and hardware architecture, [and] optimizing [for] reducing the packet processing latency, which has a small implication on the 3GPP specifications,” Park Jong-kwan, VP and head of 5GX labs at the South Korean operator, wrote in an email response to questions. SK Telecom has also, simultaneously, begun development on a low-latency UPF with Samsung and expects to begin trialing the service later this year with commercial availability arriving in 2021, he added.  Earlier this year, the operator claimed it initiated the “world’s first standalone 5G data session” using equipment from multiple vendors on a commercial 5G network, and said it was on track to activate the world’s first 5G SA service in the first half of this year. The executive declined to provide an update on that timeline other than to say the operator “will open the SA rollout plan when ready” and that it still intends to be the first operator to deploy a 5G SA core. Other mobile network operators are racing to deploy a 5G SA core as well, but SK Telecom jumped ahead of the competition early. SK Telecom laid claim to the world’s first commercially available standards-based mobile 5G network operating on a non-standalone (NSA) core in December 2018. The company later claimed it successfully tested and used a 5G SA terminal, base station, and network core in the summer of 2019.  T-Mobile US activated its nationwide 5G network running on a non-standalone core in December 2019 and says it plans to activate its 5G SA network later this year.  SK Telecom and Intel reported that their work on 5G SA UPF demonstrated up to a 78% reduction in latency by using intelligent packet classification and steering. Release 16, which faced delays prior to the COVID-19 crisis and has been further delayed since, creates a path for all network functions to be containerized and that could require more research and development with Intel on control plane optimization, Park said.  “Our initial research and development challenge was to make the low-latency 5G core, the UPF with high efficiency,” he said. “But with the 5G core becoming more cloud-native … more collaborations for 5G core research and development is to be engaged with Intel.” Alex Quach, VP and general manager of Intel’s wireline and core network division at Intel, said the vendor worked with SK Telecom to solve pain points in the transition to NFV. “In this case we were able to look at taking and prioritizing, and directing enhanced mobile broadband traffic, separating that prioritization from the IoT traffic, or what we call ultra reliable low-latency traffic,” he told SDxCentral.  The technology directs the traffic to the network interface card instead of a CPU so that it can achieve, at a constant CPU utilization rate, lower latency in the network to support 5G use cases that are expected to develop in the years to come, Quach explained. While operators are expected to differentiate their networks with varying use cases, Intel expects “quite a bit of reuse” of the technology across different operators without a heavy customization lift. “We’ll partner with a service provider to actually look at developing technologies to support new use cases and these use cases ultimately will get adopted, at least we are confident that it will be adopted and the technology can be reused” by operators that aren’t at the forefront of 5G SA development or deployment, Quach explained.  Intel is seeing strong momentum and interest for the 5G SA core because it will be required to deliver on the promise of 5G and roll out new service, he added. “The leading service providers are going to be deploying their core networks this year, and then into 2021.”