Ghost in the shell battles the spectre of a pandemic
This third iteration of the Catalyst project explores what is needed to provide highly reliable, multi-country, multi-operator network slices services and related assurance needs.
19 Oct 2020
Ghost in the shell battles the spectre of a pandemic
An overarching theme of this ambitious and successful series of Catalyst projects is the evolution of telcos to ICT service providers to offer what the healthcare industry needs today and in the near future. A key element is international collaboration and how communication service providers (CSPs) need to expand services and applications beyond their geographic footprint. As ever, the team introduces a number of “firsts” in this third iteration, which explores what is needed to provide highly reliable, multi-country, multi-operator network slices services and related assurance needs.
For this third phase* of the Catalyst project, Ghost in the shell – Phase III, the champions are Chunghwa Telecom, Hong Kong Telecom, NTT, Orange, Sparkle, Sybica, and TIM, plus the Università degli Studi di Milano, Université de Paris and the Meiji University in Tokyo. They are supported by participants, Amartus, Ericsson, EXFO, and IOTA.
Frédéric Desnoes, Project Director at Orange, and co-leader of the Catalyst project, says, “This phase evolves and refines the architecture [from Phase II] with the integration of services and applications for medical healthcare, with the emphasis on training”.
The project includes:
These applications are made possible by the end-to-end orchestration of the services and network, including transport, to enable automated operations and the dynamic scaling of network resources to better secure mission-critical traffic.
From an operational point of view, the service providers apply AI to external information about the unfolding disaster, such as from social networks, and new service level agreements can be activated if necessary.
The name of this proof of concept, Ghost in the Shell, continues the project’s sci-fi theme. It is a reference to the Japanese animated movie of that name, in which robots are controlled remotely via the internet and the separation of control and execution is key to the story.
This third phase of this proof of concept project expands on the work done in the previous phase, Skynet, which presciently demonstrated the use of 5G and hybrid network capabilities to enable an instant, ‘borderless’ response to epidemic outbreaks. To do that, the project explored enabling a diverse ecosystem of partners, including multiple operators in different geographies, which collectively and seamlessly provided end-to-end services, via virtualized and physical, wireless and fixed networks. Skynet won the Award for Outstanding Catalyst Depicting Business Assurance Awareness.
In Phase III, the project expands the inter-carrier assurance and settlement aspects which were analyzed in Skynet to include live service charging for multi-operator, multi-country network slices.
Phase III also extends the work done in Skynet of mapping all the components to TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA), including the Forum’s Open APIs. You can watch the video of the team’s Ghost in the Shell demo here, part of the Forum’s Catalyst Digital Showcase.
*The first phase, back in 2018, was Blade Runner, and the first instance of two CSPs providing an application with global reach and won the Award for Outstanding Catalyst Innovation.
For this third phase* of the Catalyst project, Ghost in the shell – Phase III, the champions are Chunghwa Telecom, Hong Kong Telecom, NTT, Orange, Sparkle, Sybica, and TIM, plus the Università degli Studi di Milano, Université de Paris and the Meiji University in Tokyo. They are supported by participants, Amartus, Ericsson, EXFO, and IOTA.
Frédéric Desnoes, Project Director at Orange, and co-leader of the Catalyst project, says, “This phase evolves and refines the architecture [from Phase II] with the integration of services and applications for medical healthcare, with the emphasis on training”.
“By collaborating with the medical and technical universities located in Milan, Paris and Tokyo that develop and use healthcare applications, the team runs international, multi-operator 5G slices for use cases that deploy medical simulation, AI and virtual reality,” explains Marco Gatti, Principal Consultant at Ericsson, and co-leader of the Catalyst project.
Automated operations
The project includes:
- Remote medical training using physical and virtual mannequins, which are connected via Open APIs for fulfilment, assurance and billing
- Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) to look at 3D models of organs of the body
- An AI-powered counsellor to help patients in distress.
These applications are made possible by the end-to-end orchestration of the services and network, including transport, to enable automated operations and the dynamic scaling of network resources to better secure mission-critical traffic.
From an operational point of view, the service providers apply AI to external information about the unfolding disaster, such as from social networks, and new service level agreements can be activated if necessary.
Gatti adds, “We have service and network assurance in the solution because we want to understand what is needed to create a highly reliable set-up for critical services running in such circumstances”.
The name of this proof of concept, Ghost in the Shell, continues the project’s sci-fi theme. It is a reference to the Japanese animated movie of that name, in which robots are controlled remotely via the internet and the separation of control and execution is key to the story.
A borderless response
This third phase of this proof of concept project expands on the work done in the previous phase, Skynet, which presciently demonstrated the use of 5G and hybrid network capabilities to enable an instant, ‘borderless’ response to epidemic outbreaks. To do that, the project explored enabling a diverse ecosystem of partners, including multiple operators in different geographies, which collectively and seamlessly provided end-to-end services, via virtualized and physical, wireless and fixed networks. Skynet won the Award for Outstanding Catalyst Depicting Business Assurance Awareness.
In Phase III, the project expands the inter-carrier assurance and settlement aspects which were analyzed in Skynet to include live service charging for multi-operator, multi-country network slices.
The business layer of the Catalyst is designed using the business scenario from the software-as-a-service ecosystem management CurateFx, developed by Trid3nt. The business layer includes a new model for the deployment of the Forum’s Open APIs within the business applications themselves to support capabilities such as the remote control of medical mannequins – actual and virtual.
Phase III also extends the work done in Skynet of mapping all the components to TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA), including the Forum’s Open APIs. You can watch the video of the team’s Ghost in the Shell demo here, part of the Forum’s Catalyst Digital Showcase.
*The first phase, back in 2018, was Blade Runner, and the first instance of two CSPs providing an application with global reach and won the Award for Outstanding Catalyst Innovation.
