Modular architecture providing convergent and ubiquitous intelligent connectivity for networks beyond 2030
Luis M. Contreras, Javier Serrano, Lefteris Mamatas, Giacomo Bernini, Paolo Monti, Mário Antunes, Udayanto Dwi Atmojo, Eli Tocker, Iñaki Val, Andrea Sgambelluri, Jérôme Härri, Antonio Lioy, Pedro Martínez-Julia, José González, Jorge Sánchez-Garrido, Hitoshi Asaeda · ITU Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies · 2022
The transition of the networks to support forthcoming beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G services introduces a number of important architectural challenges that force an evolution of existing operational frameworks. Current networks have introduced technical paradigms such as network virtualization, programmability and slicing, being a trend known as network softwarization. Forthcoming B5G and 6G services imposing stringent requirements will motivate a new radical change, augmenting those paradigms with the idea of smartness, pursuing an overall optimization on the usage of network and compute resources in a zero-trust environment. This paper presents a modular architecture under the concept of Convergent and UBiquitous Intelligent Connectivity (CUBIC), conceived to facilitate the aforementioned transition. CUBIC intends to investigate and innovate on the usage, combination and development of novel technologies to accompany the migration of existing networks towards Convergent and Ubiquitous Intelligent Connectivity (CUBIC) solutions, leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) mechanisms and Machine Learning (ML) tools in a totally secure environment.