Singtel, Nokia announce Asia Pacific's first IP transport slicing implementation

Asia's leading telecommunications group Singtel and Nokia have successfully implemented Asia Pacific's first IP transport slicing across an end-to-end 5G network.

The Proof of Concept (PoC) trial took place in Singtel's 5G Garage. It focused on evaluating the solution's capabilities to deliver end-to-end service performance for different network slices and optimize network resources on demand, Nokia said in a press release on Monday.

"Our IP transport network slicing solution is helping service providers like Singtel to address the growing demand for capacity while ensuring best-in-class network performance for 5G, consumer and industrial applications. We are looking forward to working with Singtel, our longstanding partner, to help it expand its 5G services, support new capabilities and guarantee network performance," said Federico Guillen, President of Network Infrastructure at Nokia. 

When deployed, the Nokia solution will enable Singtel to provide an enhanced customer experience for enterprise and consumer users. The solution offers the following benefits:

• Reduce operational expenditure by improving management and utilization of network resources.
• Enables the operator to provide new services, including 5G VPN and slicing for enterprise applications, as well as enhanced gaming, HD streaming and extended reality (XR).

According to Nokia, its IP transport network slicing solution incorporates a highly scalable and resilient network infrastructure that leverages segment routing with traffic-engineering, allowing fine-grained service differentiation to meet stringent critical services SLAs.

Furthermore, Nokia's comprehensive Network Services Platform (NSP) platform provides a set of tools to manage the complete lifecycle of transport slices and automation capabilities to support transport network slice realization across multiple technologies, including IP, segment routing and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).

"We are always looking for new capabilities to enhance our mobile network performance to deliver the best value for our increasingly savvy customers and enterprises. Through this partnership, we are able to leverage the advanced capabilities of IP transport, integrated with 5G network slicing; to enhance our operational efficiency and customers’ experiences," Tay Yeow Lian, Managing Director, Networks Singapore, Singtel.