or Applications Programmable Cloud Platforms Telco Infrastructure Health Critical Figure 3.23 Network slicing concept. via LTE. This architecture is called Option 3x. Usage of the existing EPC and LTE mobil- ity procedures make 5G introduction fast with Option 3x. 5G can also be deployed as a standalone (SA) solution without LTE using architecture Option 2 and 5G core network (5G-CN). The SA solution is simpler than NSA since there is no need for interworking between 5G and LTE. SA has the benefit that it can provide lower latency than the NSA solution since there are no LTE protocols included which may cause additional latency. The 5G core network enables new end-to-end services. It is also possible later to have an NSA architecture with both 5G and LTE nodes con- nected to the new 5G core network. The control plane can go via LTE or via 5G in Option 7 and Option 4. 5G architecture options are illustrated in Figure 3.24. See Chapter 5 for more details about architecture options. Non-standalone Non-standalone Non-standalone to 5G-CN with to 5G-CN with to EPC Standalone LTE anchor 5G anchor Option 3x Option 2 Option 7x Option 4 5G-CN 5G-CN 5G-CN 5G-CN = User plane EPC = Evolved Packet Core Control plane 5G-CN = 5G Core Network Figure 3.24 Main 5G architecture options. 3 Technology Components Radio Cloud and Edge Computing Radio network architecture has typically been distributed, where all the radio processing is done close to the antenna in the base station. The core network architecture has been highly centralized with only a small number of core sites. Future architecture will be different: radio processing will becomes more centralized for better scalability, and core processing will become more distributed for lower latency. This evolution will bring edge cloud servers to the mobile networks. These server locations can then host both radio and core network functionalities. The architecture evolution is illustrated in Figure 3.25. The 5G specifications are designed to support radio cloud by defining a new inte