Organic 6G networks: ultra-flexibility through extensive stateless functional split

Abstract

With the increase in hardware performance, the 5G mobile network architecture shifted from physical components to software-only micro-services. The very modular network functions can be deployed flexibly on commodity hardware. However, the extensive modularity of these network functions is increasing the number of managed entities, and the core network request latency. Also, it requires extensive procedures to be able to re-select the components for specific devices, a fundamental condition for a potential system scale-down. In this paper, we propose a new organic 6G network architecture that handles these challenges through a new functionality split based on the experience of IT software services. Furthermore, we provide an analysis based on main 5G procedures, showing that the newly proposed architecture is handling the re-selection of functionality significantly better, which is a cornerstone of high-speed scaling (especially scaling-out), as well as migration of functionality and users.