Part – A Two marks

1. What are the drivers for 5G? /List the use cases enabled by 5G (Nov/Dec 23)
(1) Business case demands from a broader set of economic actors, including
industrial companies driving new use cases,
(2) New technologies for delivering core network components creating
expectations of more efficient and flexible operations, and
(3) Shifts in how business, society and environmental needs are balanced to
deliver services in a new way.
2. List the new technologies have driven the development of 5G.
(1) Virtualization,
(2) Cloud native,
(3) Containers,
(4) Microservices
(5) Automation
3. Define virtualization.
➢ Traditionally Mobile core network element functional designs are distributed
applications which scale horizontally and run on dedicated hardware such as
processor blades in a chassis.
➢ The network element architecture is distributed internally onto specific types
of blades that perform specific tasks.
➢ The first major step of virtualization was to migrate those application-specific
blades to virtualized resources such as virtual machines (VMs) and later
containers.
4. Define cloud native.
Cloud Native architectures have gained a lot of interest over the past years and
service operators attempt to emulate the efficiencies captured by so-called
hyperscalers (e.g., Facebook, Google, Amazon) has led to a much heightened
interest in this area.
5. What are several cloud-native design principles?
✓ Infrastructure Agnostic
✓ Software decomposition and life cycle management
✓ Resiliency
✓ State-optimized design
✓ Orchestration and automation

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6. What is infrastructure agnostic?
Cloud-native applications are independent and agnostic of any underlying infrastructure
and resources.
7. What is Software decomposition and life cycle management?
Software is decomposed into smaller, more manageable pieces, utilizing microservice
architectures. Each piece can be individually deployed, scaled, and upgraded using a
CaaS (Container as a Service) environment.
8. Define Resiliency.
In legacy applications, the MTBF (Mean Time between Failures) of hard-ware has been
the base metric for resiliency. In the cloud, we instead rely on distribution and
independence of software components that utilize auto-scaling and healing. This means
that failures within an application should cause only temporary capacity loss and never
escalate to a full restart and loss of service.
9. Define State-optimized design.
How we manage state depends on the type of state/data and the context of the state.
Therefore, there is no “one size fits all” way of handling state and data, but there should
be a balance between performance, resiliency, and flexibility.
10. What is Orchestration and automation?
A huge benefit of cloud-native applications is increased automation through, for
example, a Kubernetes-based CaaS layer. A CaaS enables auto-scaling of
microservices, auto-healing of failing containers, and software upgrades including
canary testing (small-scale testing) before larger deployments.
11. Define container.
➢ From a simplistic perspective, system-level virtualization allows instances of
an Operating System (OS) to run simultaneously on a single-server on top of
something called a hypervisor.
➢ A hypervisor is a piece of computer software that creates and runs virtual
machines. System-level virtualization allows multiple instances of OS on a
single server on top of a hypervisor.
12. What is microservices?
Microservices are an architectural and organizational approach to software
development where rather than be developed in a monolithic fashion, software is
composed of small independent services that communicate over well-defined APIs.

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13. What are the benefits of microservices?
➢ Microservice instances have a much smaller scope of functionality and therefore
changes can be developed more quickly.
➢ An individual feature is expected to apply to a small set of microservices rather than
to the entire packet and 5GC function.
➢ Microservice instances can be added/removed on demand to increase/decrease the
scalability of their functions. Microservices can have independent software upgrade
cycles.
14. What is the key principle of 3GPP 5G Core architecture?
One key principle with the design of the 3GPP 5G Core architecture was not
providing backwards compatibility for the previous generations of radio access
networks, i.e., GSM, WCDMA and LTE.
15. List the options of 3GPP 5G architecture.
• To specify LTE support for the new 5G architecture
• To specify support for combinations of LTE and NR access
• To specify an alternative 5G architecture based on an evolution of LTE/EPC
16. Mention the ways that LTE or NR can be deployed.
In summary, there are four ways that LTE and/or NR can be deployed:
• Only LTE for all signalling and data traffic
• Only NR for all signalling and data traffic
• A combination of LTE and NR where LTE has the larger coverage and is used
for signalling while both LTE and NR are used for data traffic
• A combination of LTE and NR where NR has the larger coverage and is used
for signalling while both LTE and NR are used for data traffic.
17. What is AMF?
The AMF is the “Access and Mobility Management Function”. It interacts with the
radio network and the devices through signalling over the N2 and N1 interfaces
respectively.
18. What is SMF?
The SMF is the “Session Management Function”, meaning as the name suggests
that the SMF manages the end user (or actually device) sessions.

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19. What is UPF?
The “User Plane Function” (UPF) has as the main task to process and forward user
data. The functionality of the UPF is controlled from the SMF.
It connects with external IP networks and acts as a stable IP anchor point for the
devices towards external networks, hiding the mobility.
20. What is UDM?
The UDM is the “Unified Data Management Function”. It acts as a front-end for the
user subscription data stored in the UDR (more on that further down) and executes
several functions on request from the AMF.
21. What is UDR?
The UDR—the “Unified Data Repository”—is the database where various types of
data is stored. Important data is of course the subscription data and data defining
various types of network or user policies.
22. What is AUSF?
The functionality of the “Authentication Server Function” (AUSF) is quite limited
but very important. It provides the service of authenticating a specific device, in that
process utilizing the authentication credentials created by the UDM. In addition, the
AUSF provides services for generating cryptographical material to allow for secure
updates of roaming information and other parameters in the device.
23. What is Beamforming?
Beamforming: 5G NR supports a large number of multiple input multiple output
(MIMO) antennas, which would allow it to work in a high interference e n v
i r o n m e n t t h r o u g h a t e c h n i q u e c a l l e d “beamforming”. It enables
5G radios to provide both coverage and capacity.
24. What are two types of NR-U implementations?
The types of NR-U implementations are
1. Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) NR-U
2. Standalone NR-U
25. What is MIMO?
MIMO stands for Multiple Input and Multiple Output, where several small
antennas are grouped together at the transmitter and at the receiver.

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26. What is Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP)?
➢ Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) is a technique used to improve radio
performance, at cell edges by utilising the capability of more than one base
station to enable the communication .
➢ U s i n g C o M P, radio access nodes dynamically coordinate the transmission
and reception of signals from the UE to multiple base stations.
27. List the advantages of Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP)
❖ Helps the service provider to improve the utilization of network resources. For
example, data can be passed through a base station which is not loaded.
❖ User notices lesser call drops, as several cell sites come together to provide
service to the user.
❖ User notices higher bandwidth, as multiple base stations serve the user, at a
given time. The impact of the interference gets reduced and interference is used
constructively.
28. What is Microcells?
Microcells are designed for providing wireless coverage to a large geographic area
and suited for providing network coverage to outdoor applications such as smart
communities. Microcells provide coverage for a distance between 500 meters and
2.5 kilometers. Microcells can support nearly 200 users at a time.
29. What are the benefits of 5G to cloud−hosted solutions?
✓ Faster Transfer of Data
✓ Uninterrupted Storage
✓ Reliability with Large Data
✓ Enhanced Productivity
30. What is RAN?
The radio access network (RAN) and aggregated backhauls support the capabilities of
data transport, radio transmission and reception.
31. What is SCMA?
SCMA (Sparse Code Multiple Access) is introduced as a new multiple access
scheme. In SCMA, different incoming data streams are directly mapped to code
words of different multi-dimensional cookbooks, where each code word represents a
spread transmission layer.
32. What is NOMA?
In non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) with advanced receiver, multiple users
can use the same time and frequency resource.

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33. What are the key baseline functions for the EPC?
The key baseline functions for the EPC based system include support of multiple 3GPP
RATs (i.e., GERAN, UTRAN, and E-UTRAN), support for non-3GPP accesses such as
W-LAN, and support of fixed wireline access.
34. What are the functionality of the HSS (Home Subscription Server)?
o User security support
o Mobility management
o User identification handling
o Access authorization
o Service authorization support
o Service provision support
35. What is policy control charging (PCC)?
Policy control is a very generic term and in a network there are many different policies
that can be implemented, for example, policies related to security, mobility, use of
access technologies, etc.
36. What is (Enhanced) Dedicated Core Networks ((e)DECOR)?
(e)DECOR was inspired by the desire and flexibility for the operators to deploy
within an operator’s network (designated by PLMN ID(s)) multiple core networks
and directing users towards specific core networks and thus allowing partitioning
off the full core networks.
37. What is virtualized evolved packet core? (Nov/Dec 23)
DECOR and CUPS are two key enablers for the base core network architecture that
enhances EPC for 5G based on EN-DC due to the flexibility and versatility they provide
for the operators for deployment of differentiated core networks towards specific
targeted users.

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