Trusted Network Slicing among Multiple Mobile Network Operators

Abstract

5G mobile networks are expected to be much bigger in size, faster in speeds and better in scalability, providing varied services to different users and businesses in contrast to previous networks. 5G will also help enabling new business models and use cases. “Network Slicing” is a driving architectural concept for multi-tenancy. Network Slicing enables Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to deploy different services over shared physical infrastructure, increasing inter-operator resource sharing. As 5G is still in its nascent, inter operator cooperation is an area that requires immediate attention of research. Traditional inter operator trust relationship models cannot fully comprehend the needs of 5G networks. In this paper, we propose an Intel SGX based multi-MNO cooperation scheme for trusted, dynamic and efficient network slice sharing in order to support inter-operator trustworthy collaboration. Furthermore, we developed a Proof of Concept of our proposed scheme using Intel SGX, flask framework and Docker containers. The obtained results indicate the applicability of the proposed scheme with little effect on performance.