- Tech News & Insight
- July 8, 2025
- Covalense Digital
Covalense Digital’s new Csmart iPaaS–an AI-enabled API integration platform designed for telecom and enterprise ecosystems.
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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.
- Usecase
- July 3, 2025
- Hema Kadia
Tampnet has rolled out the world’s first fully autonomous private 5G network with Edge Compute offshore for Aker BP’s Edvard Grieg platform. This digital backbone provides real-time data processing, robust wireless coverage, and supports advanced offshore operations like autonomous drones, robotics, and predictive maintenance, setting a new standard for offshore oil and gas connectivity.
- Tech News & Insight
- July 2, 2025
- Hema Kadia
GFiber Labs and Nokia are partnering to shape the future of home internet with network slicing. Network Slicing lets customers customize bandwidth for gaming, work, and secure tasks. GFiber’s successful demo with Nokia shows how slices can create smoother gameplay, better video calls, and safer online banking - all while putting real-time control in users’ hands.
- Tech News & Insight
- June 27, 2025
- Hema Kadia
5G Advanced and AI are reshaping utility private networks into hyper-intelligent, resilient grids. Learn how edge AI, programmable networks, digital twins, and human-in-the-loop automation will enable predictive maintenance, real-time grid optimization, and new energy services.
- Tech News & Insight
- May 22, 2025
- omnichannel commerce
As the telecom industry celebrates World Telecom Day 2025, the theme is clear: connectivity is not just infrastructure—it is empowerment. It is what enables a student in a rural village to access world-class education, a farmer to monitor crops via smart sensors, or a doctor to conduct remote surgery with millisecond precision.
- Podcast
- May 19, 2025
- Hema Kadia
TV 2 Denmark, in collaboration with Cumucore, has deployed a private 5G network to support wireless camera workflows and high-quality live broadcasting. By moving away from commercial networks, the broadcaster has gained agility, speed, and control over its production infrastructure. This shift highlights how 5G enables flexible, secure, and efficient content creation—especially critical for live events, remote coverage, and temporary venues.
- Tech News & Insight
- May 15, 2025
- Hema Kadia
Singtel launches 5G+, introducing nationwide network slicing for both consumers and enterprises, a global first. This upgrade brings faster speeds, lower latency, stronger indoor coverage, and real-time cyber protection to over 1.5 million users. Singtel 5G+ enhances mobile connectivity with the 700MHz spectrum, priority plans, and app-based slicing for business-critical apps, aligning with Singapore’s Smart Nation goals.
- Tech News & Insight
- April 21, 2025
- 5G Americas
In 2025, 5G surpasses 2.25 billion global connections, marking a pivotal shift toward mainstream adoption. While North America leads in performance and per capita usage, challenges in spectrum policy and enterprise integration remain. This in-depth report from 5G Americas explores the rise of Standalone 5G, the promise of 5G-Advanced, the reality of private network deployments, and the need for smart, forward-looking spectrum strategy.
- Article & Insights
- April 10, 2025
- Hema Kadia
Smart mobility is reshaping how the world moves, powered by 5G, AI, and edge computing. From autonomous vehicles and real-time logistics to AI-driven drones and connected public transport, intelligent transportation systems are redefining urban mobility, logistics, and industrial automation. As global investment and collaboration grow, the transportation industry is transforming into a $11.1 trillion smart ecosystem focused on sustainability, efficiency, and connectivity.
- Tech News & Insight
- March 23, 2025
- Hema Kadia
Explore the transformative potential of Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) as it integrates AI, enhances security, and fosters interoperability to reshape mobile network infrastructure. In this article, we explore the advancements and challenges of O-RAN, revealing how it sets the stage for future mobile communications with smarter, more secure, and highly adaptable network solutions. Dive into the strategic implications for the telecommunications industry and learn why O-RAN is critical for the next generation of digital connectivity.
- Tech News & Insight
- March 23, 2025
- Hema Kadia
Telecom providers have spent over $300 billion since 2018 on 5G, fiber, and cloud-based infrastructure—but returns are shrinking. The missing link? Network observability. Without real-time visibility, telecoms can’t optimize performance, preempt outages, or respond to security threats effectively. This article explores why observability must become a core priority for both operators and regulators, especially as networks grow more dynamic, virtualized, and AI-driven.
- Tech News & Insight
- March 17, 2025
- Hema Kadia
The telecom industry is in the midst of a major shift from “telco” to “techco”, with operators investing in AI, 5G, cloud computing, and digital services to compete with tech giants like Amazon and Google. At MWC 2025, leaders from e&, KDDI, MTN, and SK Telecom discussed their AI-driven strategies, including self-healing networks, smart city infrastructure, fintech expansion, and enterprise 5G solutions. As telcos embrace AI-powered automation and cloud-based innovations, they are redefining their role in the digital economy.
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.
