Nokia Kenya just announced the successful pilot of the 4G and 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network slicing in the country. This is in partnership with Safaricom, Kenya’s largest telecom.
This announcement comes as Nokia, in March last year, announced that it was powering East Africa’s first 5G commercial services with Safaricom. Nokia’s 5G Single Radio Access Network (SRAN) technology and 5G FastMile gateways enable ultra-fast Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services to Safaricom’s subscribers across Kisumu and the Western Province of Kenya.
The pilot tested equipment from multiple vendors, and took place on Safaricom’s live commercial network. Nokia said that it provided base stations, network management software tools and Customer-Premises Equipment (CPE).
The live network trial took place in Kenya’s Western Region, and according to Nokia, the pilot initiative is the first time 4G and 5G network slicing has been successfully tested in Africa.
The new initiative will enable Safaricom to handle new types of enterprise network services, such as fast lane internet access and application slicing. Furthermore, Nokia provides secure FWA slice connectivity to company locations as well as private or public application clouds.
A little background on Network Slicing and 5G
Network slicing is a method of creating multiple unique logical and virtual networks over a common multi-domain infrastructure. The term is used most often in discussion of 5G networks, in part because the 5G specification calls for network slicing as a fundamental capability, whereas 4G and earlier generations of cellular data services did not and could not support network slicing.
Network slicing enables operators the ability to divide a network into multiple virtual slices, which can be optimized for a specific target application or service. The end user of each network slice can then be serviced with different priorities, routing, levels of network performance and security capabilities.
Slices can be managed and deployed in minutes, and each one has key performance indicators used for service assurance.
Network slicing in 5G supports these diverse services and facilitates the efficient reassignment of resources from one virtual network slice to another. The applications that are enabled or enhanced by 5G need greater bandwidth, more connections, and lower latency than what was achievable with previous generations.
Nokia’s 4G/5G slicing solution, which received a prestigious award from GTI 2021 in the ‘Innovative Breakthrough in Mobile Technology’ category, supports LTE, 5G NSA and 5G SA technologies with slice service continuity between the networks. This enables slicing services for all LTE and 5G devices.
James Maitai, Network Director, Safaricom, said: “We are proud to have hosted Africa’s first successful pilot of 4G/5G FWA slicing on our network, and looking forward to tailoring our service offerings to individual customers and industries, to meet their needs for high-speed connectivity precisely and without unnecessary cost. Nokia’s expertise has been key to this success, and we anticipate many more strategic wins in this area as our business expands.”
Ramy Hashem, Head of Safaricom Customer Team at Nokia, said: “It is great to have successfully completed this pilot with Safaricom, which is a huge step forward in providing Safaricom with state-of-the-art connectivity. Early experience of new slicing technology is invaluable in understanding the new business opportunities it enables.”
“Nokia was the first vendor to offer a slicing solution and we are looking forward to continuing our partnership with Safaricom in providing world-class 4G and 5G network slicing services to its customers.”
