5G Neutral Hosting

Abstract

The Neutral Host concept proposes a solution for the increase in cell density required by
5G to support the flexibility promised to support diverse use cases, such as enhanced
Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) and
massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC). This work evaluates the state of the art and
current associated technologies and proposes a change in the model of infrastructure sharing. A
Neutral Host business model is proposed as well as an architecture that leverages on Network
Function Virtualisation (NFV), Software Defined Networks (SDN), Multi-access Edge Computing
(MEC) and Network Slicing to enable multi-level slicing and deployment automation in a shared
infrastructure. An implementation of an automated EPC deployment relevant to such scenario is
presented and results evaluated.

Date of Award	2 Dec 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Dimitra Simeonidou (Supervisor) & Reza Nejabati (Supervisor)