3 ms·

What is this for?

• zdw 5y ago
  In a mobile network, there are a lot of parts. This is a "core" implementation handles the "control plane" - authentication of client devices, user accounting, etc. There's also a "RAN" which manages the radio portions, and a "user plane" that manages the data flows and protocol conversion between devices and other upstream networks. These all talk to each other and work together to make a 3GPP wireless network.
  • unixhero 5y ago
    I worked for a telco advisory for 3 years. You just described in more detail than anyone of us or the telcos themselves could enunciate. Thanks! :)
  • vardhanw 5y ago
    Technically the core consists of both UP (User plane) and CP (Control plane). In 4G this was MME (Mobility management entity) for CP and the S-GW and P-GW (Serving and packet gateway - which interfaces to the internet) for UP. In 5G this has been replaced with VNFs such as AMF and others for the CP and UPF (User plane function) for UP. The 5G core is truly distributed and designed from the base to have re-usable and third party VNFs with well defined (REST based) APIs so it is really a game changer. The RAN (Radio access network) and core split is there since 2G, where the RAN in LTE is the ENB (E node B) and in 5G is the GNB (G node B).
  • yaantc 5y ago
    Both core and RAN have user and control planes: the control plane is for configuration and management, and the user plane for carrying user data. This user data must go through the radio access network (RAN) and the core too. The split between core and RAN allows a single core network to manage several different access technologies. The main RAN technologies will be the 3GPP ones (LTE, NR). But it is possible to hook WiFi networks to a cellular core (there are public 3GPP specs for this), or even fixed access. The core part provides the IP access services whatever the RAN type.