Syed Farrukh Hassan has been designing and deploying networks for over 20 years. In his current role as principal telecommunications architect at Red Hat, Syed provides consultancy services to global 5G customers. Prior to that, Syed worked as a senior solutions architect in the Cisco professional and consulting services organization, providing guidance, strategy, and planning support to various Internet, cloud, and mobile service providers in their adoption of innovating networking technologies and transformation of their networks to new architectures. Syed co-authored one of the first books on NFV and SDN, has been a regular speaker in public forums and conferences, and is recognized as a Cisco Live Distinguished Speaker. Syed is a double CCIE in Service Provider and Data Center technologies (#21617), Google Certified Professional Cloud Networking Engineer, and Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA). He holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from NED University (Pakistan) and a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville (USA).

Alexander Orel has more than 20 years of experience in designing, deploying, and supporting largescale transport networks for major Internet and mobile service providers. He has worked as a lead network engineer and senior network designer in various system integration companies and Internet service providers. Alexander spent a significant part of his career as a solutions architect in the Customer Experience New Product team at Cisco Systems, where he specialized in IOS XR-based platforms, NFV technologies, Segment Routing, application-driven networks, EVPN, and other bleeding-edge technologies. Recently, Alexander joined the Global Networking team at Google, where he continues to apply and expand his knowledge of large-scale networks. Alexander has a master’s degree in applied mathematics and physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and holds CCIE certification #10391 in R&S and DC. Alexander has been a frequent presenter at various technology conferences such as Cisco Live and Cisco Connect and was recognized as a Cisco Live Distinguished Speaker.

Kashif Islam is a 20+ year veteran in the IT industry and has architected several complex, large-scale networks for some of the largest wireline and mobile service providers across the world. He is currently a Principal Telecommunication Architect in Red Hat’s consulting organization and is tasked with helping service providers transform their existing mobile infrastructure into next-generation, cloud-native 5G networks. Prior to his work with Red Hat, Kashif was a senior solutions architect at Cisco Systems. During his tenure at Cisco, he devised strategies and provided technical leadership to service providers in modernizing and transforming their existing mobile backhaul networks into xHaul to support Cloud RAN architectures and new 5G services. Kashif is a Distinguished Speaker at industry events such as Cisco Live, Society of Cable and Telecommunication Engineers (SCTE), and others. He has also co-authored Open RAN (O-RAN) Alliance’s xHaul Packet Switched Network Architecture Specification. Kashif is a double CCIE (#14300) and holds a Bachelor of Computer Engineering from Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, Pakistan, as well as a Master of Engineering in Internetworking from Dalhousie University, Canada. Kashif lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his family and, when not working, enjoys hiking in the Blue Ridge mountains.

Introduction xx

Chapter 1: A Peek at the Past 2

Brief History of Pre-Cellular Mobile Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

The Very First Cellular Networks: 1G.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Second Generation (2G) Cellular Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Generation Two and a Half (2.5G). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Third Generation (3G).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Chapter 2: Anatomy of Mobile Communication Networks 28

Understanding Radio Access Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Mobile Transport and Backhaul.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Mobile Core Concepts.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Chapter 3: Mobile Networks Today 76

3GPP Releases and Evolved Packet System.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Evolved Packet Core (EPC) Architecture.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

RAN Evolution.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Modern Mobile Backhaul Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Chapter 4: The Promise of 5G 120

Emerging Trends and Expectations from Mobile Networks.. . . . . . . . . . 121

5G Technology Enablers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

5G Service Offerings.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Chapter 5: 5G Fundamentals 138

5G Radio Access Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

5G Core Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

5G Transport Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Chapter 6: Emerging Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks: Segment Routing 212

Complexity in Today’s Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Introducing Segment Routing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Segment Routing Traffic Engineering (SR-TE). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Software-Defined Transport with Segment Routing.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

5G Transport Network Slicing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Redundancy and High Availability with Segment Routing.. . . . . . . . . . . 238

Segment Routing for IPv6 (SRv6). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Chapter 7: Essential Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks:

DC Architecture and Edge Computing 250

Data Center Basics.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

From Centralized to Distributed to Cloud Data Centers. . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Deploying Data Centers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Optimizing Compute Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Chapter 8: Essential Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks: Transport Services 274

What’s a 5G Transport Service?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

VPN Services.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Transport Services Across MCN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Chapter 9: Essential Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks: Timing and Synchronization 302

Types of Synchronization.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Why Synchronization Is Important in 5G.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Synchronization Sources and Clock Types.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

Implementing Timing in Mobile Networks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

Chapter 10: Designing and Implementing 5G Network Architecture 334

5G Architecture Recap.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

5G Fronthaul Considerations.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

xHaul Transport Technology Choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Designing the Mobile Transport Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Routing Design Simplification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Transport Services for 5G MCN.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Taking MCN to the Cloud.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Automation in 5G Networks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Deciphering 5G Mobile Requirements.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Afterword: Beyond 5G 386

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