The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) released a private 5G blueprint that uses results from a live trial in guiding service providers and enterprises in deploying and monetizing a network. The blueprint comes as private 5G network deployment interest is surging.

The blueprint comes from a trial led by TIP’s 5G Private Networks group, which is itself chaired by telecom giant Telefónica. The blueprint includes insight into dedicated on-premises 5G connectivity; on-premises compute, storage, and routing to support low latency and high bandwidth applications; centralized management; and repeatability to help with site and customer scaling.

The trial combined private 5G with edge compute to support video processing and user plane function (UPF), tapping into a central cloud when available. It used a cloud-native platform to support virtualized and containerized network functions (VNFs, CNFs) across an on-premises environment at the edge and in the cloud.

Specifically, the trial used components from Rakuten Symphony, including its Symworld Orchestrator and Cloud Native Platform to deploy multiple Kubernetes clusters at the edge and in the cloud. The Orchestrator managed the deployment of the Kubernetes clusters onto bare metal servers at the edge, and the deployment of the mobile core UPF and processing application. The Cloud Native Platform was tasked with lifecycle management for the Kubernetes clusters.

The test also used an open source, disaggregated 5G non-standalone (NSA) core to support separation of the control plane and user plane functions (CUPS) across the edge and cloud environments.

NTT Data integrated the Open Network Function’s Open Mobile Evolved Core (OMEC) into the environment and validated the integration. OMEC is a disaggregated CUPS mobile core that can run on containers, virtual machines (VMs), or bare metal.

“This required the creation of a comprehensive mobile core test plan adapted to 5G Private Networks, and the development of scripts for the different scenarios that would trigger tests from within the Spirent test suite under the control of the automation workflow and validate the test results,” TIP wrote in a statement.

Tech Mahindra integrated open-source tools into workflows to orchestrate the component repositories, the cloud and edge platforms, and the test equipment. This included integrating the deployment and test platform management services; handling artifact management, release management, service orchestration, and test and log management; and automates use cases such as OS and cluster onboarding and network function onboarding and updating.

GlobalData recently released results of an IT survey that found 82% of the 1,400 enterprises surveyed are planning to add private cellular networks to their budgets.

“Leading mobile operators are gaining new customers from private networks and anticipate substantial future revenues for connectivity, as well as value-added services such as design, testing, proof of concept, integration, application enablement, edge computing, and ongoing management,” GlobalData Principal Analyst Kathryn Weldon wrote. “Private networks are also key to the growth of next-generation (IoT) services. These networks are also a primary enterprise use case for 5G, although approximately 80% of deployments so far are still using 4G LTE.”