RAN slicing: how the radio is shared across slices

Slicing the Radio

RAN slicing divides the gNB's radio resources across slices. The primary resource being partitioned is Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs), the fundamental unit of radio allocation in 5G NR. The gNB scheduler must decide how to distribute PRBs among slices while honoring each slice's SLA. This is challenging because radio conditions change constantly — a URLLC slice might need instant access to PRBs for a latency-critical transmission, even if an eMBB slice is currently using most of the bandwidth for a large file download.