Trai proposes 5G network slicing rules to protect service quality

New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Wednesday proposed quality of service guidelines for telecom operators to use 5G network slicing to ensure that dynamic resource allocation does not degrade service quality for general subscribers, amidst debate around net neutrality. The draft rules also propose to allow telecom operators to charge different rates for 4G, 5G and other services.

The regulator said the launch of commercial plans based on 5G slicing has necessitated monitoring of on-ground impact through quality of service parameters. Trai proposed that different network slices providing the same services like internet service must adhere to the same quality of service standards and prioritisation "as prescribed in 3GPP standard 15 for that service with equal ARP (allocation and retention priority) value."

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Vinish Bawa, telecom partner at PwC India, said the guidelines could materially reshape how operators commercialise premium 5G plans. "If internet slices delivering the same service must use identical 5QI and ARP values, operators may no longer be able to justify premium consumer plans on the basis of preferential network priority alone," he said.

Instead, the focus will likely shift from selling faster internet to offering differentiated experience through service assurance, enterprise-grade features, security, and dedicated network capabilities.

Further, each slice for enhanced mobile broadband will be treated as a separate tariff offering. Telcos will have to disclose measured download and upload speeds for each slice. A slice will be considered non-compliant if the download or upload speed falls below the typical advertised speeds.

In a consultation paper on draft amendments in standards of quality of service of access and broadband (wired and wireless), Trai said quality of service for each network slice can be reliably met as long as telecom operators provision sufficient capacity in each participating radio network cell, which they will have to disclose to the regulator from October onwards.

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Telcos will have to maintain 80% capacity utilisation of radio resources during peak hours in a 5G network, and no more than 1% of the cells in an area will run over the 80% capacity threshold. This will ensure there is always breathing room even as telcos divide physical resource blocks to deliver specialised use cases using the slicing technology.

Trai said the proposed guidelines are aligned with regulatory frameworks of global authorities, drawing upon provisions from telecom regulatory bodies of the European Union, the UK, France, and the US.

"The examination of existing global regulatory frameworks reveals that most of the QoS regulatory regimes recognise the importance of network slicing supported use cases for different user or device groups to deliver required network performance like data rates ,latency, security, device density etc," Trai said. "The global regulatory approach thus far has been largely to enable network slicing use cases providing safeguards for its impact on QoS of public Internet access services," it added.