Compute and network virtualization at the edge for 5G smart cities neutral host infrastructures.

Abstract—Smart cities are one of the most important 5G verticals due to their impacts on people’s life. The neutral host model is key for this vertical, specially to promote the infrastructure sharing between operators for a pervasive infrastructure deployment. However, it demands enhancements in today’s virtualization technologies to support geographically scattered and resource constrained computing and networking elements (i.e., core data centers, edge computing point of presences, the faredge servers at lampposts). This paper presents the virtualization enhancements developed within the H2020 5GCity project to support the neutral host model for smart city deployments. The envisioned virtualization technology demands high levels of security and performance with a unified view of sliceable and heterogeneous devices and radio technologies (e.g., LTE, 5G, and Wi-Fi). In our solution, security are enhanced by deploying a robust compute node authentication, monitoring, and geo-tagging. Further, wireless virtualization is provided via an innovative multiple RAN controller approach for the management and control of heterogeneous radio resources. In order to be validated, our proposed virtualization approach is being deployed and demonstrated in the cities of Bristol, Barcelona, and Lucca.