Field trial of network slicing in 5g and pon-enabled industrial networks

Driven by recent technology advances in fifth generation (5G) wireless networks and optical communications, fundamental changes are taking place in traditional industrial networks to evolve with enhanced automation, improved monitoring, and smart interconnectivity. These changes call for updating the current network to provide service agility, intelligence, and scalability. Network slicing creates independent and logical networks on the same physical network to meet the requirements of various services. It enables an industrial network to offer tailored services as the business evolves to stay competitive. In this article, we propose a novel abstraction model of end-to-end network slicing for future industrial networks. The model enables multi-service applications over a converged industrial network with access from both 5G and passive optical network (PON) users. Performance of this model is investigated via a field trial in China Telecom's deployed 5G and PON networks for a manufacturing company. Field trial results demonstrate that the 5G and PON technologies can jointly meet the service requirements of industrial network services. The proposed network slicing model improves service quality.