The Saudi IEEE Communication Society (ComSoc) chapter strives to serve his members through a variety of scientific and social activities. This time, Dr. Abdullah Almuttiri, ComSoc Saudi Chapter Chair, invited Prof. Adlen Ksentini, who is a distinguished lecturer for ComSoc and a professor of Communication Systems in EURECOM France, for a DLT in Saudi Arabia. This tour included three distinguished lectures in three different cities within Saudi Arabia, Madinah, Jeddah and Riyadh, consecutively.
The tour lasted 11 days starting at the Islamic University in Madinah. The title of the presentation was “Network Slicing in 5G”. The talk was given in a tutorial style in order to allow the attendees to fully understand why network slicing is needed, and which technologies are involved. This was followed by a presentation of the requirements of 5G as specified by 3GPP, ETSI, NGMN and 5GPPP. Then enabling technologies were introduced: SDN, NFV and cloud computing. For each technology, Prof. Ksentini presented a short history, concepts, challenges and how it can enable 5G. In addition, for each technology, some research results obtained by Prof. Ksentini’s team in EURECOM and some research directions are given. The speaker then concluded his presentation by defining network slicing, how it could be achieved in 5G and research directions to be pursued.
The attendees were students and academic faculty members (mostly) who were engaged with the state-of-the-art technologies being presented. Subsequently, the Q&A session was very fruitful and many relevant points related to 5G in general, and network slicing, were raised and discussed.
The second visit was to Jeddah for a DLT at King Abdulaziz University. Prof. Ksentini presented “Network Slicing in 5G” for faculty members, researchers and postgraduate students. The audience was interactive and raised many interesting questions about the enabling technologies and the interfaces of those technologies assisting to enable 5G network slicing.
The third and last talk was at AlFaisal University in Riyadh, and the topic of “Network Slicing in 5G” were also given to mostly faculty members, researchers and industrial professionals. The audience was larger than the previous two DLTs, and because of the hot topic, the audience was interactive and the Q&A session extended the talk beyond the allocated time, primarily because 5G topics are gaining momentum in KSA, and many people are interested in the future of mobile networks. After the presentation, we gathered for a launch with the faculty members.
The IEEE Communication Society Saudi Chapter is striving to serve his members by hosting multiple events and activities that bring members together with the state-of-the-art technologies that are making our world a better place to live in. We regularly invite world class scientists, researchers and industrial professionals for talks and DLTs to serve the interest of our members. For questions or inquiries, please contact the chapter chair, Dr. Abdullah Almuttiri, a.s.a@ieee.org