Powering Innovative Services with the 5G-Advanced Core Revenue Engine

For mobile operators, new service opportunities are rapidly emerging everywhere. Organizations across every industry are exploring ways to transform their operations with IoT, edge computing applications, AI/ML, and other innovative technologies. For edge computing alone, global spending is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.8%, to reach $380 billion by 2028.

Mobile operators that can innovate and deploy services to support these new use cases can position themselves for major recurring revenue. In the coming months, a new set of 5G capabilities will empower them to do it. With 5G-Advanced (5G-A) technology, operators can evolve their 5G networks into more intelligent, adaptable, profitable platforms to meet the escalating demands of today's customers. Utilizing a cloud-native core that features rich automation, support for intelligent service delivery, and edge offload, operators can accelerate innovation and serve customers across various verticals. As they build, deploy, and support their new service offerings, continuous testing and assurance will play an essential role.

Aligning new capabilities with emerging use cases

The latest wave of advances to 5G technology is defined by 3GPP Releases 18-20, which extend today's existing 5G architectures at every network layer. Many of the most powerful 5G-A capabilities will reside within the 5G Core. The 5G-A Core functions as the central point of control for intelligent service delivery. It coordinates a diverse array of capabilities, such as:

More advanced slicing and QoS: Network slicing is critical to supporting a rich range of services with highly diverse service level requirements. Release 18 offers operators enhanced slice coverage and control. It enables partial slice geographical coverage, which is an important capability for large campus environments and event venues. To enhance reliability, 5G-A can also enable slice replacement, allowing for the smooth switching of traffic to an alternative slice if a designated slice is unavailable or congested. The 5G Core supports these capabilities through functions like policy control (PCF) and session management (SMF).

Analytics and exposure capabilities: Many industrial IoT and VR applications require real-time traffic and QoS data. Release 18 expands the 5G Core Network Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) to enable operators to develop and monetize advanced network insights more easily. Open API enhancements enable operators to leverage the 5G-A Core as a programmable platform, exposing capabilities such as time, slice, edge, QoS, and analytics that external developers and enterprise systems can easily consume.

Enhanced multi‑access and edge integration: To better support multi-access capabilities, 5G-A enables local breakout for edge computing and non-3GPP access, such as wireline or Wi-Fi connectivity. The enhanced 5G Core is also capable of making important decisions related to path selection, local data anchoring, analytics, and roaming support, to strengthen performance and availability.

Supporting sophisticated vertical applications: Use cases across a variety of vertical markets are becoming increasingly complex, requiring specific QoS, security, and subscription profiles. The 5G Core manages profiles for satellite integration, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), critical IoT, and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) applications. To better support IoT and industrial automation, Release 18 also provides Enhanced Reduced Capability (eRedCap), enabling more IoT device deployments through lighter, more cost-effective modules.

Continuous testing and assurance are essential to success

Although 5G-A offers a rich variety of new capabilities, its features must be fully tested before they are rolled out to operational networks.

In a dynamic, modern mobile infrastructure, assurance is no longer a one-time checkpoint. Testing must go beyond traditional methods, operating on a continuous, closed-loop basis that encompasses every phase of the service lifecycle, from planning and development to deployment and operations. Some modern methodologies include:

Digital twins utilizing network emulators

Before rolling out new services to paying subscribers, operators often stress-test new features in a safe, fully controlled sandbox environment. With network and traffic emulators, engineers can build "digital twins" that are easy to modify and manipulate, eliminating the need for costly test labs and physical equipment.

Utilizing an emulator, an operator could model intermittent NTN satellite coverage, replay bursty traffic across partial slices, or even create a test of an IoT use case with millions of eRedCap sensors.

Hybrid emulation for full validation

Over-the-air (OTA) testing can complement digital twin emulation to provide a more realistic validation of user experience, along with controlled and repeatable end-to-end testing. Utilizing real handsets in the lab, as well as emulation, allows operators to test more complex usage scenarios that better mirror subscriber behavior.

Hybrid emulation and OTA testing can also reveal performance issues that might be difficult to detect, helping to ensure that devices, applications, OS, and services provide the expected user experience before deployment.

A continuous CI/CD testing approach 

Modern 5G environments are continually evolving at the speed of IT. Continuous testing, integrated into a CI/CD pipeline, is key to ensuring that every update or modification validates performance, security, interoperability, resilience, and other key criteria.

Pipeline-triggered tests can be initiated automatically, emulating network functions for testing and generating synthetic traffic. This automated approach can identify potential issues weeks before they become apparent in a lab or in a live environment.

Continuous testing can also provide an effective way to strengthen lifecycle management and accelerate service development. The automated testing pipeline can re-run regression tests against the live "canary" instance and automate rollbacks in the event of a failure.

Active testing to enable service assurance

Active testing in the live operational network has long been key to service assurance for 5G networks. This methodology introduces synthetic traffic from devices at the edge through the RAN, transport networks, the 5G Core, and application servers.

With active testing, operators can subject the network to realistic mobility conditions and traffic behaviors, revealing issues that might otherwise remain hidden in isolated lab environments. Operators can also identify anomalies and policy conflicts that may have been overlooked, allowing them to mitigate the issues before customers encounter them. It can also help teams establish the objective proof of performance needed to verify quality and strengthen customer trust.

Delivering expected value and a path forward

As pressure grows for mobile operators to innovate and differentiate more quickly and effectively, the new 5G-A enhancements will provide a powerful toolkit for delivering lucrative new services. With 3GPP Release 18 now frozen, operators can begin practical deployment planning for many advanced features immediately. By incorporating advanced, continuous testing assurance methodologies into their development strategy, operators can move forward with confidence, seizing new opportunities and leveraging a more intelligent, adaptable, and commercially viable platform.

About the Author

Steve Douglas is the Head of Market Strategy at Spirent Communications. He is a telecom executive and strategist with over 25 years of experience, who translates complex technologies (5G, AI, Quantum, etc.) into strategic visions, plans, and value propositions that resonate in the market. Currently, Steve heads Spirent's market strategy organization, developing strategy, helping to define market positioning, future growth opportunities, and representing Spirent as chief evangelist and brand ambassador. He is also an independent board advisor for Industry and Government bodies.

About The Company

Spirent Communications is a global leader with deep expertise and decades of experience in testing, assurance, analytics, and security, serving developers, service providers, and enterprise networks. We help bring clarity to increasingly complex technological and business challenges. Spirent’s customers have made a promise to their customers to deliver superior performance. Spirent assures that those promises are fulfilled.