Singtel, the official network partner of Grand Prix Season Singapore 2022 (GPSS 2022), powered seamless 5G experiences and festivities along the Marina Bay Street Circuit in early October by leveraging Ericsson’s 5G end-to-end network slicing with Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning (RRP) during the event.
Singtel is the first communications service provider in the world to use Ericsson’s Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning feature to deliver end-to-end network slicing in a live 5G Standalone network.
Ericsson’s end-to-end network slicing solution also included cloud-native capabilities to create a dedicated slice of its network that was reserved for subscribers of Sports Plus on Singtel’s app marketplace, CAST. This meant subscribers could enjoy seamless video streaming of the action of the high-velocity race from wherever they were. The network delivered the live content even in congested areas along the Marina Bay Street Circuit due to the dedicated capacity being allocated to the service.
Singtel announced in July that it had achieved over 95% 5G Standalone nationwide coverage – three years ahead of the regulator’s deadline.
“We’re proud to have been the official network partner of the GPSS, providing race spectators and attendees of the various GPSS related events with the superior features of Singapore’s most powerful 5G network,” Mark Chong, Group Chief Technology Officer, Singtel. “With the world’s first application of end-to-end network slicing technology to our CAST app, we were able to provide F1 fans a superior viewing experience of the action on the track and enhance the experience of 5G race-related activations held across the island.”
“The fast and efficient delivery of services as well as high-quality user experience provided by Singtel CAST was enabled by a range of Ericsson technologies working together to deliver a full end-to-end network slice on 5G sites surrounding the F1 race,” Martin Wiktorin, Head of Ericsson Singapore. “With Singtel CAST subscribers being assigned the premium slice, they were able to enjoy the full race via seamless video streaming even in congested areas along the F1 race.” Around 302,000 fans turned up for the Singapore Grand Prix this year.
Network slicing will enable Singtel to offer more innovative services to its customers in Singapore. Network slicing creates a logically separated, self-contained slice of the network, offering differentiated service performance with prioritised assurance on speed, latency and reliability. Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning is a software solution that allocates spectrum resources at millisecond-level scheduling.
Singtel’s high-speed, low-latency 5G network with edge cloud and network slicing capabilities enables functions like real-time computing, data storage, data analytics and AI services at the edge – bringing to life more mission-critical enterprise applications like automated quality inspection in factories, smart city planning, connected self-driving vehicles to supercharged IoT and others.
Network slicing is a key feature of 5G deployments. Ericsson has ongoing 5G network slicing engagements for RAN, core network and orchestration across the globe. These involve diverse use cases in the consumer segment, enterprises/industry verticals such as video-assisted remote operations, AR/VR, TV/Media for sports event streaming, cloud gaming, smart city and applications for Industry 4.0 and public safety.
