Cradlepoint announced a new “network slicing-ready” 5G-optimized SD-WAN as part of the company’s NetCloud Exchange solution it introduced earlier this year in order to integrate security, SD-WAN, and zero trust into a wireless WAN architecture.

NetCloud Exchange now allows organizations to create "multiple modem WAN interfaces aligned to slice instances defined by 5G standalone (SA) networks." Organizations can then apply application-based policies to steer traffic to network slices, “whether it is a type of ultra-reliable low latency slice, an enhanced mobile broadband slice, a machine-to-machine slice, or a custom slice defined by the operator,” Cradlepoint said in the announcement.

“One of the things that are happening is that 5G is really starting to accelerate, and one of the dynamics that's happening of course, is the build out of the 5G capacity layer,” Camille Campbell, senior product marketing manager, told SDxCentral.

Cradlepoint also made enhancements to traditional SD-WAN technology so that it performs effectively across 5G WANs, including consideration of cellular-specific attributes when steering traffic, which the company says enables more cost-effective and reliable 5G networking.

“With 5G you're getting to take advantage of higher speeds, very good propagation – not only for failover, which has traditionally been the cellular role, but also as primary WAN connectivity, and even secondary WAN connectivity,” Campbell said.

5G-integrated WAN infrastructure is enabling agile connectivity for IoT devices, remote workers, and on-prem locations where wired connections aren’t ideal. But Campbell said network slicing is the “most exciting feature” of the new Cradlepoint SD-WAN solution.

“It is a little bit forward-looking,” she said. “We're trying to be ahead of the curve here.”

Cradlepoint predicts the availability of 5G SA networks with network slicing will accelerate toward the second half of 2023.

The new SD-WAN solution is mostly targeted at carriers that “are just starting to do POCs on network slicing, because these networks still have to be built out,” Campbell said. “But we are seeing some interest from the carrier environment to start doing POCs to kind of validate how they're going to roll out slicing to the enterprise.”

Network slicing “opens up more opportunities for 5G in the enterprise,” according to Campbell, because it creates MPLS-like service-level agreements (SLAs) where cellular can support differentiated levels of service over a single-plan connection.

Instead of carriers controlling network slices with their proprietary equipment, the Cradlepoint SD-WAN solution will allow enterprises to control their own network slices and the performance of their applications once 5G SA networks come to fruition.

The Cradlepoint SD-WAN uses in-line traffic to calculate WAN performance metrics to prevent impacts on data plans and preserve bandwidth across metered links.

5G has its “own unique characteristics,” Campbell noted, making it much different than operating over a wired network infrastructure. She explained that unlike broadband, 5G networks have bandwidth fluctuations based on signal strength and quality.

Additionally, the cellular world still has metered links, so “you also have to consider the customer's data usage when you're making some of those SD-WAN traffic steering capabilities.”

SD-WAN can help organizations improve WAN resiliency across multiple different WAN connections, simplify management, and provide more predictable application quality of experience across these “large distributed wireless WANs,” Campbell said.

“You need to be able to recognize the applications, categorize those applications, and then steer them into the right network slice,” she added. “Looking ahead to the standalone networks, if you want to implement network slicing in the enterprise, SD-WAN really needs to play a role.”