Natacha Baroni, Head of Energy Product Marketing at T-Mobile for Business
As the amount of data required to manage and monitor utility grids escalates, so does the concern over how much infrastructure upgrades will cost. But there is an alternative.
Network slicing partitions a single physical network into multiple virtual networks that utilities can customize for various applications or use cases. The benefit comes from being able to strategically allocate cellular bandwidth to meet your operating needs.
The software-defined network slicing architecture lets you establish logical networks that run on top of the physical 5G infrastructure. Within this virtualized environment, it’s possible to partition bandwidth into segments and uniquely identify applications or users to achieve required service levels. Your IT department can design each logical network to serve a specific purpose for your utility and include all network resources necessary to provide the latency, bandwidth, and reliability desired.
With 5G network slicing, your utility can scale up to handle data generated and transmitted by smart grids, improve security with isolated virtual networks, manage operations more effectively, and improve overall performance without expensive infrastructure upgrades.