6G Core-Architecture – Approaches for Enhancing Flexibility across Control and User Plane

The upcoming generation of mobile communications, 6G, will hold great potential to become the backbone of an interconnected world, bringing together various kinds of services and technologies. A critical factor for reaching the envisaged goals is the design of the interplay of services constituting the 6G Core network. The role it will take within the upcoming decades requires the Core network to be open, flexible and trustworthy at the same time. In this work we review the state-of-the-art principles of service interaction in today’s infrastructures, such as Core design, as well as current approaches to adapt ongoing trends in software architecture design into the world of mobile communications. From there, several areas for discussion are opened and the impact of shifting paradigms on the Core network design is analyzed. Finally, critical features and approaches that need to be considered in the design of future 6G Core networks are determined.