The focus of TRIANGLE is the development of a framework that facilitates the evaluation of the QoE of new mobile applications, services and devices designed to operate in the future 5G mobile broadband networks. The framework will exploit existing FIRE facilities adding new facilities when necessary. The project will identify reference deployment scenarios, will define new KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and QoE metrics, will develop new testing methodologies and tools, and will design a complete evaluation scheme. The project will focus on the development of a framework to ensure user QoE in the new challenging situations, especially those due to heterogeneous networks and considering the role software will have in the new 5G ecosystem The framework as value added will also provide the means to allow certification and quality mark for the applications, services and devices compliant to the requirements and test specifications developed in the project but also extensible to other FIRE test solutions. This will allow vendor differentiation, specially startups and SMEs, in the current globalized and competitive markets and further visibility of FIRE facilities. The framework, methods and tools developed during the project will focus on providing the mechanisms to incorporate new wireless technologies and topologies envisaged in 5G and contribute to the new ecosystem.

The path towards 6G is beginning now that 5G matured and is being deployed worldwide both publicly and privately. While 5G brought a step up in many fields, such as, performance and efficiency, more is always expected in terms of efficiency by the overall community and in terms of performance by industry and technology providers who want to further increase their offerings and products. Continuous demands for higher throughput, lower latency and more energy efficient communications needs to be supported by relevant use cases that can claim and demonstrate the needs for these requests. 6G-PATH goal is to help foster the further development and integration of new and improved tools and products from EU companies with 5G/6G, while also measuring relevant KPIs and KVIs. To achieve this, 7 testbeds will be part of the project consortium, which will be used by 10 use cases spread across four key verticals: Health, Education, Smart Cities and Farming. Moreover, a relevant portion of the budget will be used for FSTP, where we envision the integration of 2 new Pilot Sites, extend the testbeds with 10 additional technologies, as well as 30 new Use Cases, through Open Calls, to further involve the community and obtain more metrics and outcomes. 6G-PATH plans to work closely with other ongoing/starting Stream-B and Stream-C projects in a feedback loop, where the innovations that partners are achieving in other projects can be deployed and further tested by our pool of use cases and Open Calls, while sharing our results and outcomes to further cement the innovation being made.

5G use cases are so diverse and challenging that the 5G networks must be customisable for the broad range of individual scenarios. 5G network providers are keen to offer “networks as a service” where logical network slices are created and allocated to use cases flexibly and efficiently in a multi-operator environment. SliceNet will create and demonstrate the tools and mechanisms to achieve this ambition. Specifically, SliceNet will design, prototype and demonstrate an innovative, verticals-oriented, QoE-driven 5G network slicing framework. It will use cognitive network management, control and orchestration techniques for the provision and operation of end-to-end slicing across multi-operator domains in 5G networks. SliceNet will systematically tackle a range of the involved outstanding issues and thus directly addresses the key challenges in Strand 3 “Software Network” in this call ICT-07-2017. The integrated SliceNet framework will be demonstrated in three representative vertical use cases: Smart Grid, eHealth and Smart City, to highlight the achievements, innovations, and impacts. SliceNet support the unique perspectives and requirements on 5G networks of different players: For 5G verticals businesses, SliceNet offers an innovative one-stop shop solution to meet diverging and demanding service requirements. SliceNet enables the verticals to plug and play their use cases with bespoke control to employ 5G slices in a scalable, cost-efficient way via novel mySlice and Scalable Slicing as a Service functions and a one-stop API. For 5G service providers and users, SliceNet provides unprecedented guaranteed service quality by agile cognitive QoE-optimisation of service creation and delivery. For 5G network operators, SliceNet presents an integrated FCAPS (Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, Security) framework for truly end-to-end management, control and orchestration of slices by secured, interoperable, and reliable operations across multi-operator domains.