UC3M Master and Specialist Students are setting the 5TONIC laboratory in motion

01 April 2016

5TONIC and IMDEA Networks Institute announce that the students from the Master and Specialist degrees in NFV and SDN have initiated their laboratory training in the newly inaugurated 5TONIC laboratory located at IMDEA Networks’ headquarters in Leganés, Madrid. 5TONIC is a Research and Innovation Laboratory focusing on 5G Technologies founded by Telefónica and IMDEA Networks, and counting on the prestigious membership of Ericsson Spain.

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A group of students from University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) have started off their laboratory training which forms an important part of the prestigious Master and Specialist in NFV and SDN degree. They have enrolled to thanks to a sponsorship by Ericsson, a world leader in communications technology and services and a crucial member of the 5TONIC initiative. The laboratory training will take place in the 5TONIC laboratory at IMDEA Networks where the students will have direct access to state of the art laboratory equipment specifically designed to test and work with NFV and SDN technologies. At the same time, IMDEA Networks offers the ideal environment for carrying out scientific and laboratory work offering a wide range of sophisticated and technical equipment as well as professional and internationally renowned researchers with a broad experience in scientific activities and laboratory work. This is the first laboratory course of a total of six between November 2015 and May 2016. Apart from the highly advanced equipment at their disposal, the students are supervised by a minimum of three professors at all times. While the Specialist degree constitutes one year, the Master degree requires an additional second year of studies and laboratory practices. Currently the students are all in their first year.

The 5tonic laboratory is an open research and innovation ecosystem focused on 5G technologies in which industry and academia come together to boost technology and business innovative ventures. The laboratory is oriented to research, field testing and demonstrations of many technologies and equipment required to support 5G communications, services and applications. It is structured initially in two main areas: the 5G Virtual Software Network Area and the 5G Wireless Systems Area. The 5G Virtual Software Network Area will be focused on Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Software Defined Networking (SDN), security services, network control and management planes, cloud services, signaling, and related areas. The 5G Wireless Systems Area will be focused on the air interface, radio aspects, duplexing, multiplexing, media access control, spectrum, interference, and mobility tracking, all based on a multi-RAT (multi-Radio Access Technologies) approach. In addition to those core technological areas, the Laboratory may include experimentation on other related topics such as energy efficiency, harvesting and management (in particular for IoT devices), security and privacy and measurements and monitoring.

Founded by Telefónica I+D and IMDEA Networks, and relying on Ericsson as a key member, the private-public initiative 5TONIC aims to tackle the challenge of creating a blueprint for the new technologies and standards that are to define future 5G networks, the backbone of the “networked society”.

* NFV/SDN: Network Function Virtualization/Software Defined Networking