Toward end-to-end latency management of 5G network slicing and fronthaul traffic (Invited paper)

Special issue: Novel optical networking architectures and open interfaces for 5G and future 6G networks, edited by Marco Ruffini, Shan Wey, Raul Munoz, Moises Ribeiro, Marija Furdek, Valerio Frascolla5G network slicing allows operators to deploy virtual connectivity services tailored for specific purposes on top of the same underlying physical infrastructure. For some 5G services, the telecommunication operator needs to provide the customer with real-time information of the end-to-end Quality of Service for a particular slice. This paper focuses on the challenges behind this target, how per-layer per-segment monitoring can be performed based on common open interfaces to standard OAM protocols, and provides practical rules to plan end-to-end latency for slices. Then it reviews a few latency engineering approaches for fronthaul traffic from work carried out in this research area.This work has been partially funded by the EU H2020 project Int5Gent (grant no. 957403), as well as the NextGenerationEU project 6G-Xtreme (grant no. AEI/10.13039/501100011033), TAPIR-CM (grant no. P2018 /TCS-4496) and ACHILLES (grant no. PID2019-104207RB-I00). Funding for APC: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Read & Publish Agreement CRUE-CSIC 2022