PERMIT: Network slicing for personalized 5G mobile telecommunications

5G mobile systems are expected to meet different strict requirements beyond the traditional operator use cases. Effectively, to accommodate needs of new industry segments such as healthcare and manufacturing, 5G systems need to accommodate elasticity, flexibility, dynamicity, scalability, manageability, agility, and customization along with different levels of service delivery parameters according to the service requirements. This is currently possible only by running the networks on top of the same infrastructure, the technology called network function virtualization, through this sharing of the development and infrastructure costs between the different networks. In this article, we discuss the need for the deep customization of mobile networks at different granularity levels: per network, per application, per group of users, per individual users, and even per data of users. The article also assesses the potential of network slicing to provide the appropriate customization and highlights the technology challenges. Finally, a high-level architectural solution is proposed, addressing a massive multi-slice environment.