Enterprise RAN Slice

Summary

Effective management of radio resources is the key aspect that differentiates the different network solutions. Functionally, this is realized by the RAN scheduler implementation. Even with the macro networks, there are different grades of users (e.g., gold, silver, bronze) that require the RAN resources to be prioritized based on the user group. This is typically managed by supporting different weights applied to the scheduling function of the individual groups. With private networks, the RAN resources, based on the supported functions, need to be shared between the enterprise users, enterprise visitors, and neutral host network users offloaded from the macro networks. Even within each of these categories, there will be grades of users and the resources appropriately made available based on the category of the user. With different entities establishing contracts, a notion of reservation of finite amount of resources availability to be guaranteed. This chapter suggests the aspects involved in regulating the RAN resources, the criteria that need to be considered to retain fairness while optimally using the RAN resources and suggests an implementation that can achieve these goals while avoiding rigid resource allocations to capitalize on the user population from the different categories and the types of traffic exchanged.