Blockchain Technology Empowers Telecom Network Operation

Huidi Li,Peng Gao,Yi Zhan,*,Min Tan

1 China Mobile Group,Beijing 100032,China

2 China Mobile Group Design Institute Co.,Ltd Beijing 100080,China

Abstract: Telecom operators are deploying the fifth generation (5G) networks around the world which promises high information transmission rate,wide network coverage, low communication delay, and easy access to a large number of devices.However,during the construction and operation of 5G, telecom operators face many challenges, such as insufficient frequency resources, low efficiency of network management,information opacity,risks of data interoperability,and network privacy vulnerabilities.As 5G is generally deployed in heterogeneous networks with massive ubiquitous devices, it is quite necessary to provide secure and decentralized solutions.Blockchain is a distributed system maintained by multiple parties with inherit features including decentralization,traceability and tamperproof.These features collectively contribute to a new application ecosystem where transactions are secure and trustworthy.Therefore,blockchain is expected to integrate with 5G networks to build safer and more reliable mobile network infrastructures.This paper firstly discusses the merits of blockchain technology and the benefits of integrating it with 5G networks.Then a variety of applications of blockchain technology in telecom network operation are reviewed,including spectrum sharing,international roaming settlement,network operation management,number selection management and supply chain management.In the end, we show our recently advance in integrating blockchain in 5G by introducing a multi framework based blockchain service network architecture deployed in real environment.

Keywords: blockchain; 5G; IoT; smart contracts;BSN

I.INTRODUCTION

The wide area Internet of Things (IoT) embeds various sensors in industry, forestry and agricultural production with an increasing tendency towards more than 500 billion communication devices by 2030.At the same time, users are using more and more abundant mobile applications such as ultra-high-definition video,virtual reality and automatic driving,intelligent transportation.The giant and heterogeneous communication demand them possess severe challenges on telecom oprators’ service quality, including a higher network communication rate, a smaller delay, a better mobility support and reliability.This motivates telecom operators around the world to build and deploy the 5G wireless networks infrastructure to integrate with renewed communication technology as well as operation and maintenance architecture.In the former aspect, 5G applies Multi-Input Multi-Output(MIMO)and millimeter wave technique to greatly improve radio transmission rate[1][2].While for the latter aspect, software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV) is introduced to 5G to enhance flexible scheduling.Cloud computing is also used to meet the increasing demands for data storage in the 5G era.As a result,5G is envisioned to achieve drastic improvement in terms of network capacity, communication delay and system throughput.Based on these advantages, 5G network will provide a customized and advanced user-centric value and enable human interconnection.

However,as 5G infrastructure continues its deployment,it is observed that lack of cooperation will soon become a main limitation for applications to fully take advantage of 5G.On the one hand, cooperation between telecom operators is significant in providing high quality service.For example, realizing an autodrive service in a wide area requires multiple Base Stations(BS)from different operators to collectively provide coverage.On the other hand,different application administrators easily become information silos without data interoperability.Besides,the demand for privacy protection and system resilience emerge urgently these days as malicious telecommunication attackers becomes more and more usual.These issues motivate new 5G management architectures.

A potential solution for the above problems is enhancing 5G via blockchain.Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology with many mature and advance tools from distributed computing.The decentralized concept provides high robustness and security for database stored on blockchain.As shown in Figure 1,blockchain can be defined as a series of blocks.Each block is linked to the previous one via a hash label.The label provides robust interconnection among block and prevents modication risks.In a blockchain,Consensus algorithms are used to synchronize the system to consistent state,encryption technique is applied to authenticate messages, and smart contracts are deployed to provide flexible and advanced functionalities.Blockchain user entities can freely conduct transactions,and the transaction information is jointly managed by all the network participants, visible to them all.Therefore, blockchain can be used to build a safer and more reliable network interaction environment.Firstly, since third party authority is removed,the blockchain can avoid the hidden danger of data leakage caused by third parties, and at the same time can eliminate the communication overhead between users and third-party participant during data sharing and resource transactions.Secondly,since all transactions between users are permanently and completely recorded in the blockchain ledger,the blockchain can provide a traceable communication for the network,which not only helps network administrators to query historical resources at any time,but also deters the attempts of malicious users to create resource usage.In addition, incentive mechanisms can be embeded into blockchain consensus to ensure fair interaction among all participants.

Figure 1. Components of a blockchain system.

Figure 2. blockchain for spectrum sharing.

In summary, blockchain has the following merits:decentralization,tamperproof,traceability,anonymity and transparency.At present, blockchain technology is integrated in the fields of finance, digital government, industries [3], and smart city [4].The potential of blockchain has also resulted in gaining considerable attention in IoT [5],V2V [6, 7], edge computing[8], cloud computing [9] and radio access networks (RANs) [10].It is no doubt that 5G will be another filed that blockchain technology will make unignorable contribution.

As a communication infrastructure, 5G guarantees the transmission of massive amounts of data and information, where blockchain can assist telecom operators in improving privacy, security and trust.With blockchain, provisions and agreements between access nodes, networks, and subscribers can be negotiated on-the-fly as digital smart contracts.Smart contracts can authenticate automatically user access, detect threats and discard malicious access from the networks in an autonomous manner.

The integration of 5G and blockchain can not only improve the network information security and optimize business models,but also promote and the coordinate among each other in many aspects such as network management and scheduling of spectrum,bandwidth and channels [11-15].Operators will benefit from the application of these technologies.Blockchain helps telecom operators to secure the 5G networks and provides better localized visibility into 5G service usage.Operators can also improve resource utilization,network operation efficiency and enrich their service.Telecom operators have already started integrating the blockchain technologies in their networks.For example, some operators have provided blockchain industry solutions to create a secure and responsible service network for infrastructure asset management.Some operators have built a blockchain platform of the Internet of things to bring more transparency to the supply chain industry.While some operators establish partnerships and use blockchain technology to promote resource sharing and inter network settlement among operators.According to Ovum’s ICT Enterprise Insight survey[16],55%of telecoms industry are planning to deploy a blockchain-based solution as a trial.

This paper discusses a variety of applications of blockchain in telecom operator networks including spectrum sharing, international roaming settlement,telecom operation management, number selection management and supply chain management.At the same time, a multi framework based blockchain service network architecture is proposed,which makes it easy for developers to deploy blockchain applications.Telecom operators can use the blockchain service network to expand their business scope and improve the utilization efficiency of network resources.

II.APPLICATION OF BLOCKCHAIN IN TELECOM NETWORK OPERATION

The transmission speed in the 5G era will be greatly improved.As data volume increases rapidly, faster computing ability and more storage capacity must be possessed by intelligent terminals and edge computing nodes,which puts higher requirements on data protection capabilities.As a typical example of the application of the cryptographic technology, blockchain has the advantages of decentralization, privacy protection of user account information, tamperproof and traceability of historical records,and is particularly suitable for scenarios with strict data protection requirements.The network security boundary can be reconstructed,the trust domains between devices can be established,and the network devices can be interconnected in a safe and trustworthy way.

2.1 Frequency Sharing

Spectrum is the most important resource for operators, who constantly pursue to increase the utilization rate of the spectrum resource.With the rapid growth of wireless broadband services, the spectrum resource becomes more precious, and the contradiction between supply and demand will become prominent in the future.5G networks have the advantages of low latency and large throughput,as a result,spectrum resources consumption is further increased.However,the actual licensed spectrum is under-utilized in vast temporal and geographic dimensions.In order to alleviate the contradiction between the supply and demand of the spectrum resource, it is particularly important to achieve the refined management and sharing of spectrum resources in high, medium and low frequency bands.Allowing dynamic spectrum utilization is a remedy to solve the issue of spectrum underutilization.The dynamic access of spectrum requires a seamless transaction to avoid any services disruption[17,18].Blockchain can record spectrum information and solve the channel contention problem through a consensus algorithm.Figure 2 shows the process of blockchain for spectrum sharing.The spectrum resources are leased based on agreements stored in the smart contract.In the blockchain system, all parties can supervise the information,share the wireless spectrum resources and make the process of value transfer and circulation transparent.Figure 2 shows the process of spectrum sharing using blockchain technology.With the help of blockchain, telecom operator maximizes spectrum efficiency while providing the desired security guarantees.

2.2 International Roaming Settlement

The roaming relationship between telecom operators is relatively loose.At present, there are four open issues in international roaming settlement.Firstly,when disputes are resolved, coordination costs and time costs are high.Secondly, when the roaming agreement documents is transferred,it is extremely easy to be manually intervened.Thirdly, roaming processing has a long time limit,which is prone to operating risks such as billing fraud.And finally, roaming management models are not uniform, which can easily lead to disputes.Utilizing the high reliability and tamperproof features of the blockchain, operators and their roaming partners can share a set of credible and mutually recognized roaming agreement documents[19].When certain agreed-upon conditions are met, the smart contracts will be executed automatically and results are permanently storedon the blockchain.The chances of fraud are reduced due to transparency and immutability.

Through smart contracts, the implementation of roaming agreements and public references realizes one-stop management with automatic configuration and effective roaming tariffs,which will ultimately reduce the manual workload of each operator’s inspection and processing of agreement documents, as well as the time for processing declarations with overseas operators.

With blockchain technology, operators can achieve traceability, security and transparency, improve the work efficiency of reconciliation, and reduce the disputes caused by the inconsistency of previous complex dispute handling and arbitration mechanisms.

2.3 Telecom Operation Management

For telecom operators, managing massive and complex telecommunication equipment has always been a great challenge.There are two specific reasons.On the one hand, there are various types of equipment,manufacturers,and batches in the communication network.In many areas, it is difficult to form a transparent, penetrating and full life cycle management.On the other hand, the inspection method of communication equipment is still transforming to digitalization/intelligence.The automatic collection of inspection data, trusted storage, traceability of records and full-process technologies such as intelligent analysis are not yet complete and mature.In response to the above problems, some works brings solutions via blockchain technology.The underlying data storage of the blockchain,combined with IoT,Artificial Intelligence(AI)and other technologies,can provide operators with equipment inspection and equipment fulllifecycle management services which improves the quality and efficiency of equipment inspection.From the perspective of operators and equipment suppliers,the equipment management platform interacts with the operator’s business system through interfaces, which can synchronize equipment failure information and risk information in real time, and can predict failures in advance and deal with the failures in time.

Office data management is a very important task for operators.Office data refers to the basic data configured in the business support system to complete user billing,and settlement.Office data operations mainly include data application,approval,production,review and release,consistency comparison and so on.

The provincial Operation Support System (OSS)initiates data upload every month, and the office data center verifies the original data file and the summary file.During the verification process,data inconsistencies are found to be recorded,and the inconsistencies are stored, and the comparison conditions are sent to the provincial OSS.After multiple rounds of repeated data synchronization, data consistency is achieved.Figure 3 shows blockchain for office data management.

Figure 3. blockchain for office data management.

Figure 4. blockchain for number selection management.

Through the use of the blockchain technology,data can be synchronized in time, tampering can be prevented, and data consistency and traceability can be ensured.The distributed storage is used to improve the data reliability.An office data node includes blockchain nodes,wallets,chain accounts,event monitoring modules,smart contracts,etc.The storage uses the IPFS system to ensure that the storage function is not limited by the file size,and the IPFS address hash value of the file is uploaded on the blockchain.

When the office data is released, the existing office data system production process is used.After the office data is completed, it is stored in the IPFS system and the address hash value is returned.Through the encapsulation of smart contracts,the transaction of new bureau data is recorded in the blockchain,including identity verification information and bureau data information.Provincial BDC receives on-chain transactions through blockchain nodes, analyzes identity information and transaction parameters through smart contracts, and obtains the hash value of the BDC bureau data address.Then it synchronizes system data in the IPFS system and returns to receive the process information.

Because blockchain is tamperproof and traceable,it can be used in alarm information management and network management scenarios such as operation log management.

1.Alarm information management.The normal operation and maintenance of the 5G network are inseparable from the alarm information.The alarm information can help the user understand the current state.When the device fails, there will be the alarm information.The network management system provides a variety of alarm information filtering and alarm correlation settings.After setting,it can only display the alarm information that the user is most concerned about.At the same time,the high-level alarm information can be uploaded to the blockchain system to achieve the reliable storage and tamperproof of key alarm information,and thereby be enable data analyzing and failure tracing.

2.Operation log management.The network management system has a log management function.The operation log mainly records the operation status of the network management process After the operation log is stored on the blockchain,the operation log is ensured to be highly reliable, tamperproof, highly secure and timing irreversible.The behavior of network components can be traced at any time from the log record.

2.4 Number Selection Management

User number selection is one of the important businesses of operators.It has a set of work processes which relates to marketing department, number card center, provincial systems, and capability opening platforms.

The number selection application uses blockchain technology to form a number card chain,which can be used to check the current circulation progress of the number card at any time, and improve the communication efficiency between the number card center and the nodes.The function design includes the inquiry and submission of the card number resource status,the receiving of the number card resource, the issuance of the number card resource,the query of the number card pool status,and the user information circulation.

After the user selects the number and the number card is occupied,the user’s intention to select the number is confirmed.The information change of this number card is stored in the IPFS system, and the IPFS system returns the status change and the address hash value.The number card center instruction is encapsulated by the smart contract to process the order transaction on the chain.The capability open platform stores the information in the IPFS system after accepting and processing the order.After that, the information is passed to the provincial company to return the user’s order and upload the data to the chain.Figure 4 shows blockchain for number selection management.

Figure 5. blockchain for supply chain management.

2.5 Supply Chain Management

Telecom operator supply chain integration is becoming increasingly dynamic.Access to customer demand needs to be shared effectively, and product and service deliveries should be tracked in the supply chain.Blockchain has the features of decentralization,openness, traceability, independence and security.These features provide potential opportunities for fulfilling the requirements of supply chain data management using blockchain.By storing and managing the data flow in blockchain, the information cannot be easily tampered and treated as reliable proof of existence.Data from different stakeholders in the supply chain can be integrated into the blockchain system rather than separately stored in individual systems,which not only helps data sharing but also save cost and time for data retrieval.With the distributed operation and real-time data sharing, material production scheduling, transportation, inventory and usage information can be tracked.The information can be used in the transmission to timely adjust the production plan and construction plan to achieve the lowest logistics cost,thereby improving the overall operational efficiency of the supply chain[20-22].

As show in Figure 5,operators can build the connection between material arrival and delivery allocation in advance, effectively improving material turnover and reducing logistics operation costs.At the same time, it can realize the traceability of product quality by recording the batch and usage of the problem product in time.The operator’s inventory and material allocation information are updated in real time, and the construction party can reasonably arrange the construction team and supporting materials according to the material arrival time.Information about the delivery can also be monitored in real time so transporters can prepare resources in advance to achieve a targeted and improve efficiency.

Figure 6. blockchain for logistics tracking.

2.5.1 Process Optimization

The traditional logistics supply chain system is a centralized system.Due to trust issues and full paper management, its operation process is very complicated,which brings high cost and low efficiency.

Blockchain and digital signature technology can realize paperless management of the logistics supply chain operation process.Internet of Things technology,combined with GPS system,makes the document flow, information flow and physical logistics consistent in the operation process, and ensures the authenticity and accuracy of the data required for billing.In the reconciliation link, data during query, quote and distribution is stored on the blockchain.After the digital signature is signed for the credit subject,the electronic transportation based on the blockchain is generated.Settlement vouchers complete automatic reconciliation.The entire reconciliation process is highly intelligent and trusted.

The whole process of paperless management has greatly reduced costs and improved work efficiency.The most important thing is that a highly secure and trustworthy operating system has been formed, and transaction subjects have greatly reduced their concerns.

2.5.2 Logistics Tracking

In terms of logistics tracking, the blockchain-based commodity traceability platform uses blockchain ledger and IoT technology to achieve transparency in the entire life-cycle of commodities from production,processing, transportation to sales.Blockchain technology can ensure the authenticity of the information stored in the system,and the IoT technology can affirm the reliability of the data in the acquisition process,so consumers can trace the product information through the traceability source code on the product.

In the production process,with the IoT technology,the sensor nodes are arranged in the production base,

so various effective information of the product during the production and processing process is available in real time, such as the production environment, production time, and production process.The information is automatically uploaded to the node database.When the product is out of the warehouse, the manufacturer should upload product information,manufacturer information,packaging information,and storage information to the blockchain to provide source information for the system.When the manufacturer and the next trusted subject logistics provider handover,the effective information of the transaction process must be uploaded to the blockchain.After the logistics provider receives the product,it scans in turn,and puts its own information and the status information of the product in the handover process on the blockchain,and then dispatches the vehicle.When the logistics provider conducts a transaction with the next-node retailer, the retailer must upload the product information, retailer information and product storage information on the blockchain.When consumers purchase goods,they can trace the product information by scanning the traceable source code on the product.Consumers can also provide feedback on the product and put the feedback information on the blockchain.Figure 6 shows blockchain for logistics tracking.In fact,for consumers, the greatest benefit of product traceability lies in food traceability.The blockchain-based logistics traceability platform can ensure food safety.

2.5.3 Logistics Financing

For financing issues, the blockchain-based logistics supply chain system can achieve the following points.

1.The blockchain network system carries the key data of the production,processing,logistics,sales and feedback processes of each main body of the supply chain, forming a real trade information data chain that cannot be tampered with,and realizing the digitization of related assets

2.Blockchain technology can create a decentralized trust platform for fair cooperation between multiple credit entities.The platform can reduce the credit risk and cost of key enterprises, logistics providers, financial institutions and other major participants in logistics finance in the process of collaboration.

3.Blockchain can make the transaction relationship between the upstream and downstream entities of the supply chain open.The credit of the core enterprise in the transaction can be transferred to the remote enterprise that has no direct transaction with others, thereby solving the expensive and difficult financing problem of remote enterprises.

4.Blockchain can ensure that the transaction data accumulated by each credit subject is true and reliable, and will not be tampered with, including the subject’s financing data, repayment data and pledged data.These data can be used as the basis for the subsequent financing risk assessment of both parties before further trading.

III.BLOCKCHAIN BASED SERVICE PLATFORM

In this section,we first discuss some general principles of designing blockchain service platform.Then we introduce our recent effort in developing an blockchainbased service network (BSN) public infrastructure[23].

3.1 Blockchain As A Service

Telecom operators typically own abundant network communication and cloud computing resources,which can be used to realize a Blockchain as a Service(BaaS)platform.BaaS is a service platform that helps users to conveniently create, manage, and maintain enterprise-level blockchain based applications.It has many advantages including lower development costs and use costs, fast deployment, ease of use, high security and reliability.BaaS platform provides support for the operation of blockchain business,solves operational problems such as flexibility,security,and performance,and allows developers to focus on function development by making the blockchain and smart contract development and deployment process simple.

In principal, the BaaS platform should transform computing resources, communication resources, storage resources, and upper-level blockchain accounting capabilities, into programmable interfaces.The basic module design can be divided into three levels:resource management, blockchain underlying technology and platform management.The underlying key technologies include pluggable consensus mechanism,high-availability storage,and support for multiple types of ledgers.In addition to these basic blockchain features, the BaaS platform should also provide high-level features such as cross-cloud deployment, on-chain and off-chain access, and distributed identity management.

With the continuous development of block chain technology, a large number of block chain networks with different characteristics have formed many value islands.The cross chain technology of block chain is an important technical to realize the interconnection and value transfer between chains.There are some research on cross-chain technology of blockchain [24-26].Current cross chain technologies of block chain are systematically summarized and the characteristics of different cross chain technologies are analyzed.

3.2 Blockchain-based Service Network

We introduce a BaaS platform named blockchainbased service network (BSN) in detail in this subsection.BSN opens up the underlying technology platform of the blockchain, realizes cross-chain data exchange between different frameworks, promotes the flexible access of blockchain applications across public networks,cross-regions,and cross-institutions,and builds the underlying public infrastructure of the blockchain.Combining cloud computing resource layout and application reality, the cost of blockchain development,deployment,operation and maintenance and supervision are effectively reduced.Figure 7 shows the framework of BSN.

Figure 7. The framework of BSN.

BSN comprises the following key parts:

1.Public city node.The public city node is the basic operating unit of BSN.Its main function is to provide system resources such as access control,transaction processing, data storage and computing power for applications.After the node is completed,the application publisher,and the node can be retrieved in the portal, and its resources can be purchased for application deployment,and the traffic between the nodes is balanced through the load balancing mechanism.

2.The underlying technology platform.The BSN underlying technology platform integrates developers,portals and cloud resources with the underlying framework,and realizes cross-chain data interaction across the underlying technology framework through a series of standards such as the unified key algorithm and gateway Software Development Kit(SDK).

3.Portal.BSN adopts a multi-portal strategy.Enterprises with developer resources, such as cloud service providers and underlying technology platform parties that join BSN,can apply to establish a service network portal.In the portal,developers can purchase service network resources, publish applications and manage applications,etc.

4.Operation and maintenance system.The operation and maintenance system is a centralized scheduling system, which is responsible for application management,node management,billing management, CA management, and monitoring management.In the background, it realizes network operation monitoring,automatic application deployment,urban node network access management,resource allocation and basic capacity management.

5.Permission management chain.The permission management chain is used to manage the system basic chain of the role and permission configuration relationship in each application.It is deployed in all city nodes to provide unified onchain storage for each application and fully controlled by application developers.Service applications can define multi-level management models according to their own business characteristics, so that participants in different roles have suitable data processing permissions.

6.Prefabricated chain code mechanism.In order to further reduce the cost of developers and to simplify the learning process for developers to use the service network,BSN has built a prefabricated chain code mechanism.Application publishers can directly choose the basis provided when publishing applications on BSN.The pre-made chain code package is deployed.

BSN has supported Hyperledger Fabric, FISCO BCOS,CITA,and XuperChain.BSN has established nearly 80 public city nodes in China[27],giving birth to many innovative applications such as public welfare item traceability,and supply chain management.

IV.CONCLUSION

As future telecom networks are expected to be more complex and distributed,the network management and security issues become more challenging.Blockchain has emerged as a potential solution due to its merits such as transparency, data encryption, auditability,immutability and distributed architecture.Blockchain helps telecom operators to secure the 5G networks.With the help of blockchain, operators can improve resource utilization level, promote management efficiency and expand business types.By promoting frequency sharing and providing blockchain service network, the resource utilization of operators can be improved.The application of blockchain technology in network operation management, supply chain management and user information management improves the management efficiency of operators.In addition,the blockchain service network enables the cloud computing resources of operators to carry more blockchain applications.

In this paper, we introduce the basic principles of blockchain, put forward examples of blockchain applications in operator scenarios and propose a multi framework based blockchain service network architecture.We remark that the application of blockchain in telecom operator scenarios is still in the exploratory stage.

Although blockchain has shown its potential in some typical applications including digital identity and data management, there are still many problems such as communication latency and data redundancy.In order to solve these problems, a new blockchain platform needs to be established.And we will research on it in the future.