Network Slicing

Network slicing partitions a single physical network into multiple virtual networks, each tuned for specific performance, latency, or reliability requirements, all running on shared infrastructure. It depends on 5G standalone’s flexible, software-defined core, and is a key enabler of differentiated services — dedicated slices for enterprises, critical communications, or specific applications — and therefore a route to new operator revenue. In practice, slicing has advanced more slowly than early expectations, constrained by standalone deployment pace, operational complexity, and unproven demand. For operators, the question is which customers will pay for guaranteed, differentiated connectivity; for enterprises, whether a slice beats a private network. This channel tracks network slicing standards, deployments, and commercial models, with analysis of where slicing is delivering real services and where it remains a capability waiting for a market.

5G HAPS for Maritime Surveillance: Airspan & Space Compass

5G HAPS for Maritime Surveillance: Airspan & Space Compass
Airspan plans to supply a 5G Air-to-Ground (ATG) system for Space Compass’s High-Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) program, using an aircraft operating around 16–18 km to act as a stratospheric node for maritime monitoring. The end-to-end solution—airborne radios and antennas, onboard 5G processing, and a complete ground-based 5G RAN, core, and management stack—targets secure command-and-control plus real-time sensor data exchange between the HAPS and ground stations up to roughly 300 km away. After lab and pre-flight work, the team intends to validate the system on a light aircraft in 2026, followed by stratospheric trials in 2027.

Union Budget: COAI seeks telecom spectrum and levy reform

Union Budget: COAI seeks telecom spectrum and levy reform
With the Union Budget around the corner, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) is asking for a structural fix to spectrum pricing, statutory levies, and GST that is designed to restore sector health and accelerate digital infrastructure build-out. COAI’s agenda centers on spectrum affordability, regulatory levy rationalization, and GST reform to unlock liquidity frozen as input tax credit. COAI argues for spending the sizable unused corpus first, holding the DBN levy in abeyance, and trimming license fees to roughly 0.5–1% to cover administrative costs. Cutting GST on regulatory payments from 18% to 5% would reduce the pace of new ITC build-up and meaningfully ease liquidity pressure.

AI-Driven Traffic Reshapes 5G Networks

AI-Driven Traffic Reshapes 5G Networks
The next wave of digital transformation will be defined by AI workloads riding on cloud and edge infrastructure over 5G networks, and that shift will change how networks are built, monetized, and secured. Generative and agentic AI move more compute into the network, creating persistent, uplink-heavy, low-latency flows rather than the mostly downlink, best-effort traffic of the smartphone era. Video from cameras, glasses, and sensors feeds models at the edge and in the cloud; results return in milliseconds to people and machines. That means tighter latency budgets, deterministic jitter control, and stronger guarantees for both throughput and reliability.

SFR bid revived: Bouygues, Free-Iliad and Orange reopen talks

SFR bid revived: Bouygues, Free-Iliad and Orange reopen talks
France’s three other mobile network operators—Bouygues Telecom, Free-iliad and Orange—have reopened negotiations with Altice to carve up most of SFR, reviving a complex deal that could reshape competition, capex and customer experience across the market. The operators confirmed they are conducting due diligence with Altice after re-engaging in early January 2026, stressing that legal and financial terms remain undecided and that there is no assurance of a transaction. A successful transaction would compress the French market from four to three MNOs, with material consequences for pricing power, 5G/fiber investment, vendor ecosystems and enterprise buyers. Consolidation momentum is building across Europe, evidenced by recent approvals of large transactions with stringent remedies. Altice has been under sustained pressure to reduce debt following restructurings and asset sales.

Ericsson layoffs continue as 5G RAN demand cools

Ericsson layoffs continue as 5G RAN demand cools
CEO Börje Ekholm indicated the company will keep trimming headcount after cutting roughly 5,000 positions over the last year. In Sweden, Ericsson has notified authorities and begun union talks that could affect about 1,600 roles, part of a multi‑year restructuring program. The move follows a 2023 plan to remove around 8,500 jobs worldwide—about 8% of its workforce—with further reductions last year in markets such as Spain and Canada. The rationale remains consistent: reset the cost base, protect profitability, and keep investment firepower for strategic bets amid a slower operator capex cycle.

Ericsson AI-ready 5G and defence pivot

Ericsson AI-ready 5G and defence pivot
Ericsson is signaling a strategic shift toward defence, mission-critical, and AI-era network architectures as traditional RAN spending stays flat. Management expects the global RAN market to remain flat in 2026, sustaining a multi-year trend that now pegs annual spend at roughly the low-$30 billions. Ericsson is building for a traffic mix shift where AI applications push uplink throughput and latency to the forefront. Defence, utilities, transport, and public safety are moving from proprietary systems to standards-based 3GPP networks.

GlobalGPT Mobile App: AI Workspace in Your Pocket

GlobalGPT Mobile App: AI Workspace in Your Pocket
GlobalGPT’s new mobile app signals a step change in how multimodal AI is consumed—shifting advanced reasoning, image and video generation, and research assistance into a pocketable, enterprise-ready workflow. With app availability on Google Play and support for both Android and iOS ecosystems, enterprises can plan for cross-device continuity, enabling employees to start a task on desktop and continue on mobile with minimal friction. GlobalGPT routes user prompts to advanced models such as GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3 Pro to tackle analysis, explanations, and decision support beyond basic Q&A.

EU Digital Networks Act: Single Market, Spectrum, Security

EU Digital Networks Act: Single Market, Spectrum, Security
The European Commission’s Digital Networks Act (DNA) is a sweeping proposal to harmonize telecom rules, catalyze next‑generation investment, and turn 27 national markets into a functional single market for connectivity. The DNA is timed to underpin an AI‑driven economy that depends on fiber, 5G/6G, and low‑latency cloud‑edge fabrics spanning borders. Longer licence durations and more flexible sharing are intended to reduce renewal risk and unlock investment in 5G densification and 6G prep. Mandatory national plans to phase out copper between 2030 and 2035 will free OPEX and energy, but require careful migration of regulated wholesale products, vulnerable users, and critical services.

Mobile Private Networks: A Technology at a Turning Point (Vodafone)

Mobile Private Networks: A Technology at a Turning Point (Vodafone)
Mobile Private Networks (MPNs) have reached a critical juncture, evolving from niche deployments to scalable, production-ready solutions. Enterprises are now embracing MPN-as-a-Service, combining edge computing, AI-driven operations, and hybrid spectrum strategies to deliver low-latency, secure, and flexible connectivity. Discover how Wi-Fi integration, automation, and vendor-agnostic deployment models are accelerating MPN adoption across industries.

Orange to Fully Own MasOrange in Spain

Orange to Fully Own MasOrange in Spain
Orange has signed a binding agreement to buy Lorca’s remaining 50% stake in MasOrange for 4.25 billion euros in cash, targeting completion in the first half of 2026 subject to customary approvals. The agreement transitions MasOrange from a 50:50 joint venture to a wholly owned subsidiary of Orange, consolidating governance and simplifying decision-making across mobile, fixed, and converged operations in Spain. At closing, MasOrange is expected to be fully consolidated into Orange’s accounts, including MasOrange debt that Orange plans to refinance at or after completion, providing flexibility to optimize the capital structure and cost of capital.

IBM to Acquire Confluent for Real-Time Enterprise AI

IBM to Acquire Confluent for Real-Time Enterprise AI
IBM has agreed to acquire Confluent for $31 per share in cash, signaling a decisive move to make real-time, governed data the backbone of generative and agentic AI across hybrid cloud environments. The transaction values Confluent at an enterprise value of roughly $11 billion, with closing targeted by mid-2026 pending shareholder and regulatory approvals. Together they aim to unify application, data, and AI pipelines across public clouds, private data centers, and edge locations—reducing integration friction and accelerating time to value for enterprise AI.

Jio IPO: Tariff Hike Timing, Airtel RMS, 5G Outlook

Jio 2026 IPO: Impact on 5G, Capex, ARPU, and India’s Digital Market
Reliance Jio’s path to a mid-2026 IPO is increasingly intertwined with the timing and magnitude of India’s next mobile tariff hike. Domestic brokers argue Jio has a tactical reason to push back on near-term tariff increases: hikes tend to accelerate Bharti Airtel’s revenue market share (RMS) gains more than Jio’s, narrowing the lead at the worst possible time for an IPO. Airtel has been the key beneficiary of previous price actions, chipping away at Jio’s RMS advantage by almost two percentage points since mid-2024. On current assumptions, Jio is informally pegged around $153 billion, implying an EV/EBITDA multiple near the low teens.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is network slicing in simple terms?
It’s the ability to carve a single physical 5G network into multiple virtual, independently configured slices, each with its own guaranteed performance characteristics for speed, latency, and reliability, so an operator can sell different service tiers off the same infrastructure rather than building separate networks for each use case. Each slice behaves, from the customer’s perspective, like a dedicated network tailored to their specific needs, even though it’s actually running on shared physical infrastructure alongside other slices serving completely different customers simultaneously. This is conceptually similar to how a single physical server can run multiple virtual machines that each behave like an independent computer, applied instead to network connectivity.
Is network slicing actually commercially available, or still experimental?
It has moved from pilot to early commercial deployment. Major carriers including T-Mobile, Verizon, Reliance Jio, and Singtel have launched commercial slicing-based offers for specific use cases, and telecom operators are described as the primary enablers of slicing technology, expected to hold roughly 62 percent of the market in 2026. That said, the industry consistently describes network slicing as being in the early stages of commercialization, meaning successful pilots are still being converted into broader, more scalable commercial offerings rather than slicing having become a fully mature, universally available product.
What’s a real-world example of network slicing in use?
Singtel partnered with Tencent Games to launch a dedicated low-latency network slice for cloud gaming in Singapore, described as the first nationwide gaming-specific network slice in the world, letting users play without downloading games or needing high-end hardware. Verizon Business launched a dedicated fixed wireless access slice for enterprise customers with guaranteed performance, extending slicing beyond mobile use cases into business broadband. Nokia and the UAE operator du were reportedly first in the industry to deploy autonomous network slicing, which automates the creation and management of slices rather than requiring extensive manual configuration.
Why does network slicing require 5G Standalone (SA)?
True dynamic, end-to-end network slicing depends on a 5G core built independently of 4G, known as 5G Standalone or SA architecture, since SA provides the flexibility and granular control needed to create, manage, and guarantee performance across multiple isolated virtual networks simultaneously. Non-standalone 5G, which still relies on a 4G core for certain control functions, can support some slicing-like capabilities but generally not with the same flexibility, automation, or end-to-end performance guarantees that SA enables. This is one of the main reasons operators have prioritized SA core upgrades specifically as a foundation for unlocking more advanced monetization opportunities like network slicing.
How big is the network slicing market expected to get?
Forecasts vary considerably depending on the specific market research firm, but most analyses put network slicing’s growth rate above 40 percent annually through the late 2020s, driven primarily by telecom operators monetizing differentiated connectivity for industries like healthcare, automotive, gaming, and manufacturing. Asia Pacific is generally described as leading global adoption given its large population base and diverse industrial use cases, while North America is often projected as the fastest-growing region given strong infrastructure investment. These projections should be treated with appropriate caution though, since the underlying market remains in an early commercialization phase.
Who actually manages and creates network slices in practice?
In practice, network slices are created and managed through orchestration software that translates a specific business requirement, such as guaranteed low latency for a particular customer’s application, into the actual technical configuration needed to deliver it across the relevant network infrastructure. This orchestration layer handles tasks like allocating the right combination of radio, transport, and core network resources to a given slice, monitoring whether it’s actually delivering its promised performance, and adjusting resource allocation dynamically as conditions change. More advanced, automated approaches, sometimes called autonomous network slicing, aim to handle much of this process automatically rather than requiring extensive manual configuration by network engineers each time.
What technical challenges have slowed broader network slicing adoption?
Several technical challenges have slowed broader adoption beyond the foundational requirement of upgrading to 5G Standalone infrastructure. Ensuring consistent performance guarantees across a slice that may span multiple different network domains, from radio access through transport and core, requires sophisticated end-to-end orchestration and assurance capabilities that have taken time to mature. Interoperability across different vendors’ equipment adds further complexity for operators running multi-vendor networks. There’s also a more fundamental business challenge: defining a manageable, scalable set of standard slice types that cover most customer needs, rather than requiring a fully custom-built slice for every individual customer, which would be operationally impractical at scale.
How is network slicing different from older approaches like VPNs or dedicated lines?
Older approaches like traditional VPNs or dedicated leased lines could provide a degree of network differentiation and security for specific customers, but they generally required separate, often physically distinct infrastructure or fixed, manually provisioned configurations that were slow and expensive to set up and change. Network slicing achieves a broadly similar goal, providing differentiated, somewhat isolated connectivity for a specific customer, but does so dynamically and through software, on top of shared underlying 5G infrastructure, without requiring separate physical infrastructure for each customer. This makes slicing considerably faster and cheaper to provision than traditional dedicated infrastructure approaches, while still providing meaningful performance guarantees and isolation.
Private Network Leadership Awrads 2026

Partner Hubs

Download content, access intelligence tools, and hear from executives.

Partner Events

  • M360 ASEAN
  • FutureNet Asia 2026
  • Network X Vienna 2026
Scroll to Top