Neutrino: A Fast and Consistent Edge-Based Cellular Control Plane

5G and next-generation cellular networks aim to support tactile internet to enable immersive and real-time applications by providing ultra-low latency and extremely high reliability. This imposes new requirements on the design of cellular core networks. A key component of the cellular core is the control plane. Time to complete cellular control plane operations (e.g., mobility handoff, service establishment) directly impacts the delay experienced by end-user applications. In this paper, we design Neutrino, a cellular control plane that provides users an abstraction of reliable access to cellular services while ensuring lower latency. Our testbed evaluations based on real cellular control traffic traces show that Neutrino provides an improvement in control procedure completion times by up to $3.1\times $ without failures, and up to $5.6\times $ under control plane failures, over existing 5G. We also show how these improvements translate into improving end-user application performance: for AR/VR applications and self-driving cars, Neutrino improves performance by up to $2.5\times $ and $2.8\times $ , respectively.