Take ‘predictable’ 5G to a new level at MWC19

Ho-hum. Will MWC19 be just more “big data” and “AI”? We hope not, and we’re taking a radical new approach to the business case for 5G. 

Here’s a bold prediction: we’ll hear a lot about big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning during Mobile World Congress 2019.

Okay, so that isn’t very bold. Next to 5G, big data and AI will likely be at the top of the conversation in Barcelona. We’ll hear about AI for RAN optimization, mobile handsets, autonomous vehicles and devices … for every nook and cranny of mobile networks.

But let’s leave behind how AI will help you take better pictures with your phone or understand your customer churn… and get a bit more specific. Let’s talk instead about 5G network rollouts and their supporting business cases. 

Along with improved efficiency, most of the 5G business cases rely on differentiated services. 5G will allow service providers to sell guarantees for specific performance (latency, throughput) based on the particular service needs. A combination of the 5G RAN with network slicing and edge compute will help make this possible in a way that 4G networks could not deliver.

Delivering this kind of performance guarantee requires several incremental changes for 5G networks:

• The ability to automatically deploy virtual performance monitoring with each network slice, so we have visibility into performance in real time
• Understanding per-slice performance, leveraging AI, so that we know when a slice is delivering the performance it is supposed to (and when it is not)
• Being able to share the performance of each slice with other elements of the 5G core to allow these elements to make intelligent decisions on policy and slice selection in real time

Accedian’s demos at MWC19 hit all three of those points. With our SkyLIGHT solution suite, we’ll show:

• A fully virtualized performance solution that can be deployed in network slices
• How AI and machine learning can combine multiple sources of performance data in real time to produce information about the health of a network slice
• The power of standards-based APIs to make network health information available where it’s most useful

Stop by our booth (Hall 6, Stand 6D60) to take control of 5G: experience how SkyLIGHT can help you leverage big data and AI to deliver on differentiated performance guarantees in 5G networks. It isn’t the sexiest use of AI that you’ll see at MWC, but it is one that underpins 5G monetization and new enterprise use cases, and we think that makes it pretty important.