ON THE COEXISTENCE OF 5G NETWORK SLICING AND NET NEUTRALITY

Resumo

Since John Perry Barlow’s cyberspace declaration of independence more than two decades ago, many transformations have occurred in the digital ecosystem. The utopian vision of free space was replaced by a reality in which informational flows became conditioned by the Internet architecture, its communication protocols, and the intervention of network operators, which influence the users’ behavior and autonomy. Currently, the fifth generation of mobile communications systems (5G) standardizes a programmable network capable of supporting the exponential growth of Internet traffic and handling a heterogeneity of use cases. Central to the 5G technology, network slicing introduces new traffic differentiation paradigms that segment users, applications, and services into customized logical domains having dedicated radio and computational resources. This logic potentially conflicts with the net neutrality principle, which aims to ensure that all Internet communications should be treated in the same manner, without discrimination. This paper addresses the contradictory nature of these two concepts and proposes a strategy based on standardized functions already available in the 5G core network to increase network transparency and subsidize the regulatory monitoring of Internet traffic management practices, which are essential elements to enable the coexistence of network slicing with net neutrality.