Cloud-native 5G network issues and challenges

And how solving them creates a better 5G experience 

EXFO’s Ken Gold recently wrote a paper for ICT Today about identifying and solving the challenges inherent in 5G standalone (5G SA) networks. Mobile network operators (MNOs) and communication service providers (CSPs) are figuring out how to get past these challenges and access the opportunities 5G SA promises. 

They’ve already encountered issues like these: 

• 5G SA will generate a LOT of data. One estimate puts the amount at 40 petabytes per hour. That’s a lot of data to store, transport and analyze. The physical and financial requirements of doing so are daunting. 
• Cloud-native networks are more difficult to troubleshoot, so mean time to repair (MTTR) could increase, threatening both quality of experience (QoE) and business service level agreement (SLA) objectives. 
• There are plenty of siloes in the world of networking. People in each silo need to reach out beyond their “departments” and work as one team. Otherwise, QoE and SLA expectations aren’t met. And customers switch to other providers. 

This list goes on—and does not include challenges yet to be encountered. 

Ken goes into greater detail on each challenge before explaining how to deal with them. Spoiler: the solution involves a single view of both network performance and the customer experience.