The term ‘5G’ has become a buzzword in recent times. 5G promises to achieve amazing Data rates, like never-before achieved ultra-low latency communication, and connect a large number of devices with coverage everywhere.

5G Network by definition is the fifth generation of mobile networks. it is the newest standard for mobile communications, introduced as an upgrade to 4G. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is the industry organization that is responsible for defining the global specifications for 5G.

The capabilities of 5G are shown below;

What is 5G Sandbox Simulation?

The 5G Sandbox simulation project aims to address issues of restricting R&D opportunities for research communities and provide users with easy-to-access experimentation of network stacks with just commercially Off-the-shelf (COTS) components. With the assistance of the Sandbox tool, it will set the trend of creating a larger community with dense knowledge base and allow the next course of network operations and deployments to be more accessible.

With open-source software communities engaged, the tools will allow us to perform changes, and configurations and build the required knowledge on emerging telecommunication technologies.

Our setup consists of a large number of components and thereby requires a high computational requirement for a seamless experience. Therefore, to make it accessible to everyone who wishes to use it, the platform is hosted on a cloud service. Exclusive access is currently awarded to the users of the 5G Innovation Centre universities.

To start with the simulation, the following things are needed:

1. IP address with the username for your cloud service platform
2. .PEM certificate file of the server
3. Visual Studio Codeinstalled on your computer

Note:  the IP address, username, and the PEM file will be provided by our team to the University’s 5G Innovation Centre Lab Director.

Workshop: 16^th November 2022

The following use cases have been implemented as part of the first workshop

Here we will be demonstrating the use case of downloading a file from a server where both the server and client utilizes 5G for their connectivity. In this example, two User Equipment (UEs) will be created where one will act as a server which includes several files available to be downloaded. The other UE will be used for downloading a selected file from the server as a client through the 5G network.

To showcase capabilities of the sandbox we will be looking at utilizing the deployed 5G Network for live audio streaming. Due to the low latency and increased bandwidth availability compared to 4G, 5G can offer near real-time audio streaming with optimum quality. For this application, we will be utilizing the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) where we will have one of the UEs running a RTSP server with a broadcast and second UE as a listener.