The key objective of 5G NORMA is to develop a conceptually novel, adaptive and future-proof 5G mobile network architecture. The architecture is enabling unprecedented levels of network customisability, ensuring stringent performance, security, cost and energy requirements to be met; as well as providing an API-driven architectural openness, fuelling economic growth through over-the-top innovation. With 5G NORMA, leading players in the mobile ecosystem aim to underpin Europe’s leadership position in 5G. Relevant to strands "Radio network architecture and technologies" and "Convergence beyond last mile", the 5G NORMA architecture will provide the necessary adaptability able to efficiently handle the diverse requirements and traffic demand fluctuations resulting from heterogeneous and changing service portfolios. Not following the ‘one system fits all services’ paradigm of current architectures, 5G NORMA will allow for adapting the mechanisms executed for a given service to the specific service requirements, resulting in a novel service- and context-dependent adaptation of network functions paradigm. The technical approach is based on the innovative concept of adaptive (de)composition and allocation of mobile network functions, which flexibly decomposes the mobile network functions and places the resulting functions in the most appropriate location. By doing so, access and core functions no longer (necessarily) reside in different locations, which is exploited to jointly optimize their operation when possible. The adaptability of the architecture is further strengthened by the innovative software-defined mobile network control and mobile multi-tenancy concepts, and underpinned by corroborating demonstrations. 5G NORMA will ensure economic sustainability of network operation and open opportunities for new players, while leveraging the efficiency of the architecture to do so in a cost- and energy- effective way.

The approach of the 5-Alive project will be to use an innovative mix of community and industrial support to produce the essential material and to perform an intensive communications programme. The project proposes to establish effective processes to capture, synopsise and present frequent news updates on the activities of the European 5G initiative and ensure their widespread dissemination. The project involves a number of key industrial players, who are active in lead roles in both the ETP and the Association, and are contributing manpower to the project activities at their own cost, to ensure the investment is shared between industry and the EC. Thus the funding model of this proposal is a true reflection of the stakeholder interests in and commitments to the European 5G-Infrastructure-PPP. The main 5-Alive project objectives are: • Produce an updated roadmap for the holistic network perspective (including 5G) via the NetWorld2020 ETP, • Actively promote and position the European 5G Initiatives as part of the leading global initiatives, • Stimulate the involvement of the European ICT community and consumer sectors as drivers of evolution, • Facilitate the 5G-Infrastructure-Association production of strategies for later phases of the 5G-PPP, • Conduct a first exercise on mapping the 5G-PPP KPIs to the research challenges to determine which topics will directly contribute to obtaining the foreseen infrastructure performance/feature improvements. The project will run for one year to boost the 5G activities in the short-term in advance of the kick-off of 5G project related activities and to position the 5G PPP initiative as “the” European initiative in the 5G domain at global level.