Yet another 5G-focused consortium made its debut today. Called the 5G Mobile Network Architecture (Monarch), the project will focus on using network slicing to support different vertical industries such as automotive, health care, and media.
Nokia will lead the consortium, which has a budget of $9.06 million. There are 14 members of the group, including Samsung, Huawei, Telecom Italia, Real Wireless, and the Hamburg Port Authority. The project is scheduled to end in July 2019.
Monarch is part of the Phase 11 of the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G-PPP) and part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Program. Horizon 2020 is an EU public and private research program that has designated $89.8 billion in funding over seven years (2014 until 2020).
Nokia is a contributor to the 5G-PPP and coordinated the Phase 1 research for 5G-NORMA, a project that provided the conceptual basis for 5G networks. Monarch is the second phase of that initiative and will focus on deployment and use cases.
Monarch will specifically look at cloud-enabled network protocols and create a detailed 5G specification that incorporates technologies such as inter-slice control and cross-domain management. It will also launch two test beds for the technology — one test bed will be in a tourist-heavy city with a lot of mobile usage and the second will be in a seaport.
5G-Transformer Project
Interestingly, this isn’t the only European coalition focused on 5G network slicing. A similar group, called 5G-Transformer Project, was formed in June. That group consists of 18 companies, including Nokia. Similar to 5G Monarch, the 5G-Transformer Project is looking at network slicing and how it can support different vertical industries. The 5G-Transformer Project is funded by the European Commission and received $8.9 million for its work. The European Commission is also providing funding to Horizon 2020.
Various European 5G projects exist under the Horizon 2020 purview. Horizon 2020 has a broad scope of goals for network standards including 1,000x increased capacity, 90 percent reduced energy (particularly in mobile), reduced service creation time cycle, secure and ubiquitous coverage with low latency, dense wireless communication links, and an increase in user security.
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