What is 5G core
and how can it
help benefit
business?

As the latest generation of wireless technology, 5G can provide organizations with a faster, more responsive and overall more powerful experience. Businesses across multiple industries are developing 5G use cases that are taking advantage of the technology's high bandwidth, fast speeds and low latency.

A recent change to the back-end infrastructure of the 5G network core has the potential to unlock further performance benefits and offer bandwidth and latency enhancements.

5G core, also known as 5GC, is responsible for a variety of functions within the cellular network that makes communication possible. According to CCS Insights, It is sometimes referred to as the "brain" of a mobile network. Among the services that run on the 5G network core are access and mobility management, session management, authentication, authorization, and data and policy management.

Verizon recently moved its commercial traffic over to its 5G network core, which will offer unprecedented levels of service agility, flexibility and automated scalability and will eventually enable the dynamic allocation of the appropriate resources, referred to as network slicing.

When introduced, 5G initially operated in what is known as non-standalone (NSA) mode where 5G Radio Access Networks (5G RAN) were overlaid on a 4G LTE core, also known as Evolved Packet Core (EPC).

In contrast, standalone mode involves 5G RAN communicating directly with a cloud-native 5G network core. This means network management is simpler and performance is better. The new 5G core will augment EPC and allow access to either standalone or non-standalone mode based on what the business needs.

The 5G core has many of the same features as 4G core, with additional security plus the added benefits of cloud-native technologies and 5G Service Based Architecture. This provides even more flexibility and allows the 5G network core to be co-located with edge data centers.

For many businesses in the short term, there will be no discernible impact.

Longer-term there will be substantial benefits from the performance, bandwidth and latency enhancements of the 5G network core. For example, with 5G network core, private wireless network functions will be fully software-based, and highly flexible. Other benefits include:

Moving commercial traffic onto the 5G network core can provide the lower latency, better reliability, massive connection density and improved energy efficiency required by mission-critical applications such as industrial IoT, smart grids, remote surgery and self-driving vehicles. Organizations using edge computing will particularly benefit from access to URLCC.

Businesses with high bandwidth applications requiring high data rates will benefit from the 5G core, particularly use cases around eMBB. Examples include stadiums seeking to enhance the fan experience, municipalities and public safety agencies using smart city technology, and businesses using VR/AR devices for meetings, training and more.

Another impact of the change to the 5G network core is the ability to support greater device density, known as mMTC. This will be particularly relevant to industries such as manufacturing (connected factories) and utilities (resource metering and management).