Project Scope

5G ESSENCE addressed the paradigms of Edge Cloud computing and Small Cell as a Service by fuelling the drivers and removing the barriers in the Small Cell market, forecasted to grow at an impressive pace up to 2020 and beyond and to play a key role in the 5G ecosystem. 5G ESSENCE provided a highly flexible and scalable platform, able to support new business models and revenue streams by creating a neutral host market and reducing operational costs by providing new opportunities for ownership, deployment, operation and amortisation.

The technical approach exploited the benefits of the centralisation of Small Cell functions as scale grew through an edge cloud environment based on a two-tier architecture: a first distributed tier for providing low latency services and a second centralised tier for providing high processing power for computing-intensive network applications. This allowed decoupling the control and user planes of the Radio Access Network (RAN) and achieving the benefits of Cloud-RAN without the enormous fronthaul latency restrictions. The use of end-to-end network slicing mechanisms allowed sharing the 5G ESSENCE infrastructure among multiple operators/vertical industries and customising their capabilities on a per-tenant basis. The versatility of the architecture was enhanced by high-performance virtualisation techniques for data isolation, latency reduction and resource efficiency, and by orchestrating lightweight virtual resources enabling efficient Virtualised Network Function placement and live migration.

5G ESSENCE leveraged knowledge, SW modules and prototypes from various 5G-PPP Phase-1 projects, SESAME being particularly relevant. Building on those foundations, very ambitious objectives were targeted, culminating with the prototyping and demonstration of 5G ESSENCE system in three real-life use cases associated to vertical industries, i.e., edge network acceleration in a crowded event, mission critical applications, and in-flight communications.

Project Objectives

Towards pursuing the project’s goals, the following main measurable objectives were identified:

• To specify the critical architectural enhancements from 5G-PPP Phase-1 that were needed to fully enable cloud-integrated multi-tenant small cell networking.
• To define the baseline system architecture and interfaces for the provisioning of a cloud-integrated multi-tenant small cell network and a programmable RRM controller, both customisable on a per vertical basis.
• To develop the centralised SD-RAN controller that would program the radio resources usage in a unified way for all CESCs.
• To exploit high-performance and efficient virtualisation techniques for better resource utilisation, higher throughput and less delay at Network Services creation time.
• To develop the orchestrator enhancements for distributed service management.
• To demonstrate and evaluate the cloud-integrated multi-tenant small cell network via three real-life vertical industries.
• To conduct a market analysis and to establish new business models. Detailed techno-economic analysis and roadmapping towards exploitation and commercialisation by industrial partners was also a priority.
• To ensure maximisation of 5G ESSENCE impact to the realisation of the 5G vision by establishing close liaison and synergies with 5G-PPP Phase-1 & 2 projects and the Association.
• To pursue extensive dissemination and communication activities, as well to assess the perceived impact from the stakeholders and the wider community.

Project Consortium

• Hellenic Telecommunications Organization S.A.
• NEC Laboratories Europe (Terminated by December 31, 2017 - Replaced by NECLE) NEC
• Intel Research and Development Ireland Limited
• Zodiac Inflight Innovations
• ATOS Spain S.A. ATOS
• IS-Wireless
• Wind TRE
• Athonet
• Fundació i2CAT, Internet i Innovació Digital a Catalunya i2CAT
• Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) / CREATE-NET (Center for Research and Telecommunication Experimentation for Networked Communities)
• Smart Mobile Labs GmbH
• National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos"
• CyberLens LTD
• British Association of Public Safety Communications Officials BAPCO
• Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
• Thales SIX GTS France SAS TCS
• ITALTEL S.P.A.
• ORION Innovations Private Company ORION
• Universidad del Pais Vasco/ Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea EHU
• EIGHT BELLS LTD
• Municipality of Egaleo
• NEC Laboratories Europe GmbH
• Casa Communications Technology