What are the components of 5G System:
Obviously we have User Equipment (UE) which are:
- smartphones, laptops and tablets,
- routers designed for fixed wireless access,
- IoT devices or remotely controlled machines.
Wireless connection is provided by 5G RAN where base stations could be:
- gNodeB type — which support New Radio (NR) — 5G standard defined by 3GPP
- eNodeB type — which ensures compatibility with 4G standard (LTE)
The base station connects to a core network which is divided to:
- Control Plane Functions (CPF) responsible for the management of the network
- User Plane Functions (UPF) responsible for data transfer to/from UE
Last but not least in 5G there is a clear separation between CPF and UPF. This enables flexibility in Core network preparation. I.e. if numerous IoT devices are expected, Control Plane should be scaled. Similarly, when high data transfer is required, the UPF will be expanded. If we would have UPF and CPF merged, then in both cases we will scale all of the resources. Stay tuned for more technical details of components of 5G system.