IG1194 Focus on Services not Slices v1.0.1

The purpose of this technical report is to share some concerns and suggestions about network slicing adoption as the technical and standards work starts to reach maturity.   Operators believe that the market success of slicing will be related to how simple and useable a slice is. Ordering and consuming slices need to be as frictionless as possible, and standardized slice templates and slice APIs are important in making that happen. This report will describe proposals for such slice templates and slice interfaces. We aim to simplify the current standards by hiding network complexity but adding more service-aware constructs to the slice definition. The use and consumption of slices can be simplified by keeping the right level of focus on services rather than slicing and slicing jargon.