The Espoo trial site provides 5G testing facilities built in several national projects under the 5GTNF (5G Test Network of Finland) framework. In the context of the 5G-DRIVE project effort, it will focus on the development and evaluation of both eMBB and V2X scenarios. The current network infrastructure is built on top of Nokia’s NetLeap LTE test network. It will be gradually upgraded to 5G networks when 5G NR and 5G core network components are available.
The current infrastructure supports research areas ranging from the programmable core network infrastructures, including the utilization of the software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) concepts, to dense and heterogeneous access network configurations with various short-range technologies, small cells, and Internet of Things (IoT) use cases. The core network consists of a carrier grade telco cloud part that can be utilised for research and development requiring high capacity and limited amount of re-configurability, and of an open source core network implementation (OpenEPC) that provides additional flexibility with more limited capacity. The radio access network contains a cellular component based on technologies in the LTE evolution path, as well as 5G prototype radios using new frequency ranges and air interface configurations not currently found in standardised technologies. In addition, various short-range radio technologies can be used to access the network. The existing infrastructure consists of several commercial indoor LTE pico cells, programmable OpenFlow software switches running on commodity x86 servers, and a small-scale OpenStack installation for applications and services deployment. There is also a testbed for mm-wave backhaul development that consists of a group of interconnected network processor platforms emulating a wireless mesh backhaul. Finally, Nemo tools are used for measuring the coverage and quality of wireless networks such as cellular and WiFi.
The network contains both indoor and outdoor eNodeBs operating at 2.6 GHz, lamppost integrated small cell networks operating at 3.5 GHz and mm-wave bands at 26 GHz, as well as Wi-Fi networks operating at unlicensed 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. This site enables creating a virtual mobile network with its own evolved packet core (EPC) and can utilize the edge computing platform for developing localized services. The design of the test network is such that it is open for experimental EPCs. This enables multi-operator scenarios and testing of network slicing in the project. MEC platforms are currently being installed at the Otaniemi site. With the aid of an artificial delay element (network emulator), the performance of MEC for URLLC use cases can be tested in different latency scenarios. eNodeBs are connected to a 10Gbps SDN-enabled backhaul and to an OpenStack cloud environment. The Espoo testbed provides facilities and test environments for SDN/MEC, indoor positioning, latency reduction, reliability and other technology topics targeted by the 5G-DRIVE.
