Software–Defined End–to–End Evaluation Platform for Quality of Service in Non–Standalone 5G Systems

The fifth generation of mobile communication (5G) will support a much broader spectrum of quality of service (QoS) profiles than its predecessor long-term evolution (LTE). These improvements are enabled by new features such as software-defined end-to-end network slicing, which concern both the core network and the air interface. However, the current vision for the actual rollout is a smooth transition from LTE: First, the new radio (NR) base stations are integrated into the existing LTE network infrastructure in a configuration called non-standalone mode. At a later stage, the core network will be replaced by a complete and standalone 5G network. The long transition period using the previous generation's core will pose challenges in delivering some of the promised advantages of 5G networks. This work addresses these shortcomings of non-standalone operation. We propose a development and evaluation platform capable of integrating QoS and investigate ways of enabling 5G performance at a much earlier stage of the generation transition. In the experimental setup, an LTE air interface is augmented by a software-defined radio (SDR) based NR link at 28 GHz, while end-to-end network slicing functionalities are implemented via software-defined networking at the core as well as the radio access network. First evaluations prove that the proposed system is capable of reliably ensuring QoS.