Content uploaded by Madhusanka Liyanage
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Madhusanka Liyanage on Jun 20, 2023
Content may be subject to copyright.
Blockchain enabled Private 5G Networks: A
Primer
Nisita Weerasinghe∗, Tharaka Hewa†, Anshuman Kalla‡, Mika Ylianttila§, Madhusanka Liyanage¶,
∗† §Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland
‡CGPIT, Uka Tarsadia University, India
¶School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Ireland
Email: ∗† §[firstname.lastname]@oulu.fi,‡anshuman.kalla@ieee.org,¶madhusanka@ucd.ie
Abstract—Private 5G Networks (P5GNs) are a newly emerg-
ing paradigm that the telecommunication sector and indus-
try verticals are about to witness. The concept of P5GN
is to build a 5G network with just enough infrastructure,
which is required to fulfill the specific and local needs of
an industry vertical. Broadly, P5GNs offer two-fold benefits.
First, it creates new business opportunities for new entrants
with small investments, and second, it satisfies the specific
need of industry verticals with contextual and location-aware
services and content. However, there are numerous challenges
like spectrum scarcity, roaming fraud, limited infrastructure,
confined coverage, security vulnerabilities, and management of
massive small data. Thus, this paper aims to explore various
existing challenges and discuss how blockchain technology,
in conjunction with smart contracts, can be leveraged to
mitigate them. Further, the implementation challenges in
rolling out blockchain-enabled solutions are presented with
possible solutions to overcome them.
Index Terms—5G mobile communication, P5GN,
Blockchain, Smart Contracts
I. INTRODUCTION
The recent advancements in P5GNs have opened doors
for new business opportunities and innovative ways to meet
heterogeneous industry verticals’ contextual and typical
requirements. In general, P5GNs are built to operate as
small cell communication infrastructure to cater to industry
verticals’ specific needs effectively. This is to say that from
the user’s perspective, P5GNs offer highly context-oriented
services and content locally to the serving industry verticals,
thereby complementing traditional mobile broadband offer-
ings. Moreover, location-aware applications and use cases
such as smart cities, smart factories, and smart hospitals
can be rolled out in a dedicated and flexible manner using
P5GNs. From the business perspective, P5GNs broaden the
horizons of the 5G business value chain by allowing easy
and less capital-intensive entry for new players (i.e., small
operators) in the market. Despite the multitude of benefits
and range of applications that can be achieved with the roll-
out of the P5GNs, numerous challenges are blocking the
road ahead. Some of these challenges are spectrum scarcity,
roaming frauds, limited infrastructure, confined coverage,
and massive small data [1], [2], [3], [4]. Hence, the quest
is to address these challenges to reap timely the services of
P5GNs.
Blockchain, the most popular type of Distributed Ledger
Technology (DLT), turns out to be a promising technology
for the next generation of mobile networks [5], [6] and for
This work was supported in part by the Academy of Finland under
6Genesis Flagship (Grant No. 318927) and 5GEAR (Grant No. 319669)
projects.
the creation of open and trustless business ecosystem [7].
Blockchain is a distributed, tamper-persistent and verifiable
digital ledger sustained in a decentralized manner by a
network of nodes connected in a P2P (Peer-to-Peer) fashion
[8]. In this paper, we aim to explore how blockchain tech-
nology, in conjunction with smart contracts, can effectively
realize P5GNs by overcoming related challenges.
The outline of the paper is as follows. Section II
presents numerous existing challenges for P5GNs and how
blockchain-based solutions can potentially resolve them.
Section III discusses implementation challenges that could
be encountered with using blockchain in P5GN and briefly
lists possible solutions. Section IV concludes the paper.
II. EXISTING CHALLENGES IN P5GNS A ND M IT IG ATIN G
ROL E OF BLOCKCHAIN
This section elaborates on various technical challenges
that obstruct the wide adaptation of P5GN. It also discusses
how blockchain-based solutions can potentially mitigate
them. The overview of the proposed blockchain-based so-
lution and its applications is depicted in Fig. 1.
hlR1: On the other hand, a deeper analysis of one or
more of the challenges discussed would have brought more
value to the work. E.g., a more in-depth explanation about
how SCs can mitigate one of the challenges mentioned
would have fostered the discussion on the feasibility of the
proposed approaches.
A. Spectrum Sharing
Spectrum being a limited resource must be utilized as
efficiently as possible. Moreover, given the growing de-
mands of industry verticals, the effective management of
the spectrum becomes even more critical. As per [1], three
different spectrum management opportunities have been
identified for PG5Ns. First, the MNO-centric approach,
where Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) deploy P5GNs
by their licensed spectrum bands. Second, a collaboration-
centric model where a P5GN operator leases spare spectrum
from MNOs. Third, a local operator-centric mechanism
where a P5GN operator gets the license directly from the
regulatory body for local use. Two types of stakeholders
in the collaboration-centric model are MNOs and P5GN,
whereas in local operator model are regulatory bodies and
P5GN operators. Hence, a centralized management party
must monitor whether the collaborating parties function
based on the negotiated terms and conditions. This ar-
rangement will provide an overhead to each stakeholder,
Internet
Blockchain Nodes
Smart Factory Smart
Hospital
IoT Tenants
University
L5GO
L5GO
L5GO
Subscribers
5G MNO
5G MNO
MEC
Server MEC
Server
MEC
Server
MEC
Server
Subscribers
Blockchain-based Functions/Services
VNF Service Providers Cloud Services Providers
Subscribers
Proposed BaaS Architecture
Subscription
Management
Function
User
Stakeholder
Universal
Identity Universal
Wallet
Marketplace
Function
Bidding Platform
Buyer Buyer
Selection Function
Select optimum PG5N
(Roaming/Offloading)
PG5N PG5N PG5N
Subscriber
Select optimum seller
(Marketplace)
Buyer
Seller
Seller
Seller
Reputation
Management
Function
PG5N Seller
Rating
System
Agreement
Establishment &
Billing Function
Dynamic
agreement
establishment
Payment
deduction
based on
consumption
Fraud Prevention
Function
Subscriber PG5N
Smart Contract
(1) Service
request
(2) Retrieve
account
balance
(3)Return
maximum cost
of service
IoT Data
Management
Function
IoT devices
Distributed
Ledger
Store data
Third-party
User
Access data
Fig. 1: Blockchain-enabled Services in P5GN Ecosystem
which compels subscribers to expend additional fees on the
management entity.
Possible Blockchain-based Solutions:The blockchain
is an up-and-coming solution for effective and on-demand
sharing of the spectrum among the stakeholders by elim-
inating costly centralized authority. In addition to cost
reduction, a blockchain-based coordination mechanism can
establish decentralized trust between the stakeholders. This
is possible because of the transparency and immutability
of the transaction data and the smart contracts on the
blockchain. Also, using smart contracts can effectuate dy-
namic spectrum agreements in an agile manner. Moreover,
blockchain can enable spectrum sharing in cognitive radio
networks.
B. Roaming
Roaming in P5GN refers to the transfer of ongoing con-
nection from the Home Mobile Network Operator (HMNO)
to the Visitor Mobile Network Operator (VMNO), when a
subscriber moves to a geographical location that HMNO
does not cover. Usually, HMNO or home P5GN has pre-
signed agreements with VMNO or visitor P5GN based on
which services are provided. However, there are numerous
issues with such kind of agreements like limited coverage
by visitor network, variation in price packages by visitor
network which may generate bill-shocks to customers [9],
and variations in QoS since there is no transparency in the
system. Further, the roaming frauds are estimated to cost
over USD 38 billion every year to the telecommunication
industry [2]. This is mainly due to the delay incurred while
transferring Call Detail Records (CDR) from Visited Public
Mobile Network (VPMN) to Home Public Mobile Network
(HPMN). The cause of this delay is the existence of a Data
Clearing House (DCH) as an intermediary.
Possible Blockchain-based Solutions:Blockchain’s fea-
tures like immutability, non-repudiation, and auditability,
along with smart contract-based tight access control and
transparent agreements, can pave the way to deal with
roaming operations and related frauds [10]. Instead of pre-
agreements, dynamic agreements via smart contracts can be
issued. Such kind of dynamic and softwarized agreements
allow agility and SLA compliance. Moreover, a blockchain-
powered real-time monitoring mechanism can be designed
to rate the performance experienced at any visitor network.
Smart contract-based pre-selection of a network operator
based on the input parameters (such as signal strength and
dynamic reputation of the operators) can help overcome the
issues such as poor service delivery and price discrepancies.
Further, the roaming fraud can be dealt with by disinterme-
diating the entities like DCH using blockchain.
C. Offloading
In the 5G ecosystem, offloading techniques are key in
improving overall network performance. Offloading allows
over-utilized MNOs or P5GNs to dynamically handover
their subscribers to another available under-utilized net-
work. With the commercialization of concepts like smart
cities and autonomous vehicles, the popularity of P5GNs
will increase, which may reduce the overall network per-
formance and user experience [11]. Thus, offloading tech-
niques turn out to be a profitable solution. Nonetheless, to
effectively adopt offloading for MNOs and P5GNs, many
challenges need to be addressed. For instance, manual
selection will not be feasible with increased offloading in-
stances and the number of network candidates. To overcome
such challenges, a real-time performance rating system is
required to effectuate the selection of the best P5GN to
offload.
Possible Blockchain-based Solutions:Blockchain can
offer a viable solution for all the challenges related to
offloading. The use of a blockchain platform for common
communication and negotiation can be instrumental in dy-
namic offloading. It can support network operators to select
the next optimal P5GN to offload dynamically based on
various factors such as available capacity, bandwidth, cost
scheme, and reputation. The dynamic agreement can be
established between the source network (MNO or P5GN)
and the hired network (selected P5GN) via smart contracts.
D. Infrastructure Sharing
P5GN is mainly designed to cater to the massive and
diverse requirements of users by deploying customized
services locally. Depending on the current demands and
available resources and the type of deployment scenario,
P5GN needs to lease various types of deficit resources
from resource providers. These providers can be network
infrastructure providers, content providers, and/or facility
owners [12]. To establish a successful collaboration between
P5GNs and resource providers as well as to ensure that
both the parties function as per the agreement, the trend
is to have an intervention of trusted third parties [13].
However, this costs extra service fees and additional delay,
which is a burden to both parties. Moreover, in case of
a successful attack, these third parties can reveal all the
private information of customers as well as business secrets
[14].
Possible Blockchain-based Solutions:The use of
blockchain technology provides trustless, transparent, and
decentralized infrastructure sharing in P5GNs. In particular,
it can remove the central authority and reduce the excessive
charges imposed by intermediary parties. Moreover, the
dynamic agreements between P5GNs and vendors can be
established using smart contracts on top of the blockchain.
Also, the implementation of a real-time and transparent
monitoring system to ensure compliance with service level
commitments can be effectively realized with the help of
blockchain.
E. Fraud Prevention
Fraudulent activities are possible in any network ecosys-
tem. Especially when the number of tenants increases, it
gets increasingly challenging to design mechanisms that
ensure complete fraud prevention. Moreover, implementing
robust fraud prevention techniques may affect the antici-
pated performance of P5GN. For instance, Machine Learn-
ing (ML) based techniques deployed in centralized stations
to identify the outlier tenants will affect the service delivery
performance of the network. Furthermore, at times some of
the frauds committed can be unaccountable and cannot be
resolved due to the lack of trust. For instance, the consumer
may not accept the centralized base station logs provided
by MNOs. Besides, the centralized storage of logs is also a
significant overhead in terms of computation and storage.
Possible Blockchain-based Solutions:Integration of
blockchain and smart contracts in P5GNs can offer multi-
faceted benefits. From the user’s perspective, their data can
be stored using blockchain in a distributed fashion, thereby
overcoming the issues associated with centralized storage.
Smart contracts can be utilized to provide robust access
control. Moreover, transparency and immutability of the
code and the self-execution capabilities of blockchain-based
smart contracts build trust between involved parties. From
the network’s perspective, blockchain can be used to track
the activities of each party by logging them on the ledger.
These logs can later be used to resolve any kind of dispute.
Unlike the logs stored in a centralized system, these logs are
transparent, immutable, and provide non-repudiation, thus
helping in identifying and preventing fraud.
F. Subscription Management
The major challenge in subscription management within
the PG5N ecosystem is identity or subscription theft. A
malevolent node intentionally utilizes an authentic identity
credential of a user to commit fraud within P5GN by getting
access permission. Another challenge is that subscribers
have to go through authentication procedures every time
they move to another PG5N, which negatively affects the
customer experience. Additionally, capabilities required to
share securely user-subscription information between other
operators are inadequate in currently available systems [3].
Possible Blockchain-based Solutions:Issues related to
subscription management can be resolved by integrating
blockchain in the P5GN ecosystem. User profile details can
be secured against forgery using encryption techniques like
hashing before storing it in the distributed ledger. Also, a
mechanism for assigning a universally unique identity to
each subscriber can be devised via blockchain. This will be
vital to recognize each subscriber distinctly and globally.
G. Virtual Network Function (VNF) Management
The collaborative model of Network Functions Virtual-
ization (NFV) and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC)
drives the 5G network services toward the edge layer.
Although there are significant benefits, the migration and
management procedures open up a few security challenges.
Normally, most of the operators deploy the NFV ecosystem
as per their business requirements. The malicious practices
of the VNF expose the entire NFV ecosystem to various
types of risk, for instance, damaging the generic VNF
hardware. Moreover, issues like compatibility, secure migra-
tion, consumption, and payment settlements [15], [16] will
be hard to resolve with the existing ecosystems. Further,
there are no methods exist to assess the reputation of VNF
providers.
Possible Blockchain-based Solutions:Blockchain and
smart contracts have the required potential to overcome
the aforementioned issues. Illegal utilization can be pre-
vented by registering all the organizations connected to the
NFV ecosystem in the distributed ledger and assigning a
unique identity. Interoperability issues can be eradicated by
establishing dynamic agreements between the P5GN and
VNF vendors via smart contracts. Further, developing a
blockchain-powered dynamic reputation system for VNF
providers can enable P5GNs to select the optimal vendor
as per the requirements. Additionally, blockchain can en-
sure secure transfer of payment from P5GN to third-party
vendors based on P5GN’s consumption and agreed pricing
policies.
H. Internet of Things (IoT) Data Management
IoT ecosystems are anticipated to exponentially expand
across different industrial contexts in the future. Security of
IoT networks and related data is becoming difficult because
of the limited resources (e.g., battery life, processing, and
storage capability) and various levels of heterogeneity of
IoT devices, on the one hand, and the high volume of
(small) data generated, on the other hand. The use of the
current centralized system to manage all the IoT nodes
tends to exacerbate the issues like single-point-of-failure,
service unavailability, ownership of data, illegal access,
higher communication delay, and many more. However, it
has been concluded by many recent studies that the use of
blockchain, is one of the most disruptive technologies to
ensure decentralized security [17].
Possible Blockchain-based Solutions:A blockchain
makes highly secure peer-to-peer networks possible with the
help of multiple nodes connected together. While acting as
nodes in the blockchain network, IoT devices will be able
to offload major process-intensive tasks to the blockchain.
Thanks to the decentralized nature, blockchain-based data
management solutions will be able to be connected with
billions of nodes simultaneously.
Table I summarizes all the challenges and discusses, in
a nutshell, the benefits of using blockchain-based solutions
to mitigate each of them. Expected performance and appli-
cations of blockchain-based services for P5GNs are given
in the table II.
III. DISCUSSION ON IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES
Despite all the benefits that blockchain can bring in the
realm of P5GNs, there are crucial bottlenecks that need
to be improved. This section discusses the implementation
challenges and proposes various techniques to tackle them.
A. Legal Issues
As of now, there is an absence of legal frameworks for
blockchain-based systems. This makes blockchain technol-
ogy a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the technology
offers many promising features such as disintermediation,
immutability, pseudonymity, and cryptographically sealed
distributed ledger. On the other hand, it has various legal
issues like the absence of a legally liable entity, non-
availability of rules and regulations to deal with legal
disputes and ownership of damages caused due to the
malfunctioning of smart contracts. The most significant
legal hurdle in the blockchain-based P5GNs arises when the
personal data is accessed and stored at all the participating
nodes that are outside the premises of a given P5GN to
which a set of users are subscribed.
Possible Solutions:Early initiatives from government
and regulatory bodies can resolve such legal issues and
can give a boost to the use of blockchain for P5GNs. The
establishment of legal frameworks by understanding the
influence of blockchain in both commercial and customer
segments of P5GN can help overcome the skepticism and
easy onboarding of various stakeholders for blockchain-
based P5GN.
B. Scalability - Latency and Throughput
Given the increasing popularity of P5GN, the use of state-
of-art blockchain technology will pose significant scalability
issues. This is because P5GN is expected to give rise to an
enormous number of transactions to be handled because it
is characterized by a large volume of IoT data, dynamic
resource trading, on-the-fly offloading, and frequent roam-
ing instances thus there will be. Blockchain technology, in
general, has low throughput due to its inherent distributed
nature, transaction validation process, block mining and
block verification process, and network-level replication
of information. Moreover, the throughput and the overall
latency depend on the type of blockchain and the underlying
platform being used. For example, public permissionless
blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum can process around
4 to 15 transactions per second (tps), whereas, ripple can
process about 1500 tps [33]. Additionally, lightweight nodes
anticipated to operate within P5GNs will experience scala-
bility issues due to the existence of operational overheads
involving cryptographic functions.
Possible Solutions:The above challenges can be pre-
vented by lowering the network load within the P5GN
network. This can be achieved by offloading the users con-
nected to one P5GN to another P5GN. In addition to that,
few techniques are already available to scale up the perfor-
mance of blockchain. One of them is the implementation of
Lightning Network technology to accelerate the transaction
speed. Another solution is to execute the Sharding model,
where a shard is a subclass of the blockchain network, in
which data is stored in multiple shards and they handle
transactions parallelly. Moreover, Segwit and Pos are other
concepts introduced to tackle scalability issues.
C. Security and Privacy
Though blockchain is known for its strong security fea-
tures, nevertheless, it is not completely immune to attacks
like 51% attack, selfish mining, and DoS/DDoS attacks.
From P5GN’s viewpoint, a compromised IoT node (or
group of compromised nodes) under the control of an
attacker can launch DoS (or DDoS) attack to slow down
or make the services unavailable. Moreover, due to the
distributed nature of blockchain, all the full nodes have a
complete and exact replica of the ledger with them. Thus,
the distributed nature of the ledger opens the door to privacy
issues.
TABLE I: Potential challenges in L5GOs and blockchain-based solutions
Challenges Brief Description Benefit of Blockchain-based solutions
Spectrum Sharing [18],
[19], [6]
Absence of transparency in the current spectrum sharing approaches
due to its subjective involvements [20]
Validating the transparency of the spectrum marketplace publicly by
the decentralized network of blockchain nodes
Only static agreements can be established Enforcement of dynamic agreements using smart contracts
Breach of pre-established static agreements by network operators
Roaming [21]
Generation of additional cost to the roaming subscribers, with the
transfer of their billing records from VPMN to their respective HPMN,
via DCH
Removal of third-party entities such as DCH by transferring its duties
to the blockchain, which relaxes the cost burden of roaming customers
Subscribers experiencing bill-shocks [9] with the change of package
prices time-to-time. Further, the cause of roaming fraud when MNOs
try to alter transaction logs
Assurance of transparency in every transaction record motivates the
provider to act fairly. Enablement of fast dispute resolution by storing
verified transactions in the distributed ledger
Possibility for roaming subscribers to exploit the resources of VPMN,
owing to the existence of CDR exchange delay from VPMN to HPMN
[2]
Permitting VPMN to offer roaming service with reference to the
available credits on the subscriber’s wallet
Because of the network congestion that could occur with the increasing
demand of PG5Ns, the user experience of subscribers will be nega-
tively affected
Enforcement of network load sharing techniques between L5GOs by
executing a smart contract to find and offload the subscriber with the
least connectivity to the optimal L5GO. Further, the selection of the
optimal L5GO to offload can be enabled using smart contracts
Stakeholders are paying unnecessary charges for the mediators to
manage agreements between them
Replacement of intermediary organizations with the blockchain by
allowing it to offer the services delivered by them.
Offloading [11] Inconvenience in selecting a suitable L5GO to offload manually due
to the increasing number of L5GOs
Execution of a dynamic selection system via smart contracts to find
the next appropriate L5GO to offload
Infrastructure Sharing
[22], [23]
Infrastructure providers tend to deliver second-rate services Record and analyze the behavior of vendors by storing each of their
performance information during every session in the ledger
Subscription
Management [3]
Stealing subscription ID Assignment of a unique identifier for every user and store it in the
ledger. Whenever a subscriber connects to the network, L5GO can
look up the database to authenticate the onboarded users
VNF Management [24]
Third-party VNF providers may not deliver services as they have
agreed at the period of advertisement
Enforcement of penalty scheme via smart contracts if the vendors have
not met the standards as they promised by analyzing the recorded
performance information of vendors
Possibility to vandalize the VNF by a malicious party during the VNF’s
migration process
Use of smart contracts to state the authorized callers who are respon-
sible to call certain transactions, which can be realized by examining
the transaction’s digital signature
Payment settlement process requires to track the usage of VNFs and to
transfer the payment from network operator to VNF providers securely
Record of usage details and payment transfer via smart contracts
Non-existence of a monitoring and reputation system to evaluate the
performance of VNF providers
Execution of dynamic reputation system via smart contracts
IoT data Management
[25], [26] [27]
Modifying transaction records stored in IoT devices Enforcement of immutable decentralized transaction logs
IoT nodes consist of limited storage capabilities Utilization of distributed ledger for storage purposes
IoT nodes lack processing competences to handle data sharing activi-
ties
Offloading processor-intensive tasks to blockchain
IoT end-devices are vulnerable to Distributed Denial of Service
(DDoS) attacks [28]
Prevention of DDoS attacks with the exploitation of cryptographic
nature of blockchain, which guarantees the security of transactions
Possible Solutions:Numerous types of solutions are
possible ranging from stronger encryption techniques like
the homomorphic signature, Trusted Execution Environ-
ment (TEE) for secure smart contracts, and techniques like
mixing, Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE), and Privacy
Enhancing Technologies (PETs) can be used for preserving
privacy.
D. Synchronization Network Overheads
Continuous synchronization is required among the nodes
in the blockchain. All nodes require to be consistent and
should have a replica of the ledger. A newly mined (deem-
to-be valid) block is disseminated in the P2P blockchain
network and is eventually stored after verification. This
broadcast type of traffic in blockchain leads to significant
network overheads which tend to increase, with the increase
in the number of nodes.
Possible Solutions:One of the possible solutions to
reduce the synchronization network overheads is the cus-
tomization of consensus algorithm towards data optimal
synchronization. In addition, network overheads can be
decreased by removing redundant data and restructuring the
transaction data objects in a way to decrease their size.
IV. CONCLUSION
P5GNs are the latest trend that is going to flourish
with the full-fledged deployment of 5G. It will allow easy
entry to new entrants in the telecommunication market and
has the potential to offer dedicated services to industry
verticals. In this work, numerous challenges pertaining to
the deployment of P5GNs are presented, and blockchain
technology has been identified as the key enabler to mit-
igate these challenges. Nevertheless, there are challenges
associated with the implementation of blockchain-based
solutions in P5GN. Thus, the possible ways to overcome
these implementation challenges are also discussed.
ACK NOW LE DG EM EN T
This work was supported in part by the Academy of Fin-
land under 6Genesis Flagship (Grant No. 318927) project
and by Science Foundation Ireland under CONNECT phase
2 (Grant no. 13/RC/2077 P2) project.
REFERENCES
[1] M. Matinmikko-Blue, S. Yrj¨
ol¨
a, V. Sepp¨
anen, P. Ahokangas,
H. H¨
amm¨
ainen, and M. Latva-aho, “Analysis of Spectrum Valuation
Approaches: The Viewpoint of Local 5G Networks in Shared Spec-
trum Bands,” in 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic
Spectrum Access Networks (DySPAN). IEEE, 2018, pp. 1–9.
[2] G. Macia-Fernandez, P. Garcia-Teodoro, and J. Diaz-Verdejo, “Fraud
in Roaming Scenarios: an Overview,” IEEE Wireless Communica-
tions, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 88–94, 2009.
[3] R. Borgaonkar, L. Hirschi, S. Park, and A. Shaik, “New Privacy
Threat on 3G, 4G, and Upcoming 5G AKA Protocols,” Proceedings
on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, vol. 2019, no. 3, pp. 108–127,
2019.
[4] N. Weerasinghe, T. Hewa, M. Liyanage, S. S. Kanhere, and
M. Ylianttila, “A Novel Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) Platform for
Local 5G Operators,” IEEE Open Journal of the Communications
Society, vol. 2, pp. 575–601, 2021.
[5] D. C. Nguyen, P. N. Pathirana, M. Ding, and A. Seneviratne,
“Blockchain for 5g and beyond networks: A state of the art survey,”
Journal of Network and Computer Applications, p. 102693, 2020.
TABLE II: Expected Performance for Blockchain-based Services in L5GOs
Blockchain based
Service
Application Expected Capacity Expected La-
tency
Expected Scalability Other Requirements
Auctioning [29] Spectrum and infrastruc-
ture sharing
100 - 1000 Mbps <10s 10-1000 transactions per
day
Report generation from the ledger, and end-to-
end data security
Network Selection [30] Roaming 1 Mbps per session <15ms per se-
lection
>1 million transactions
per network
Lower data operation, and lower computational
overhead
Offloading: Selecting best
network to offload
50 kbps per session <15ms per se-
lection
>0.5 million transac-
tions per region
Optimal offloading decision
Offload User Selec-
tion [11]
Offloading: Selecting op-
timum user to offload
20 kbps per selec-
tion
<10 ms >10,000 transactions
per day
Proper service authentication
Fraud Prevention [2] Roaming Fraud >10 - 100 Mbps
per request
<5ms 10,000 transactions per
region
Broad array of fraud rules, and upgrading ca-
pability dynamic fraud rules
Infrastructure
Provider Selection
[22], [31]
Infrastructure sharing 5 Mbps per selec-
tion
<1min per
transaction
>50 - 100 transactions
per ecosystem
Compatibility with existing infrastructure ser-
vices
VNF management >10 Mbps per op-
eration
<30s per
transaction
>100 per factory Adaptability to future NFV techniques
User Verification
[32]
Authentication 50 kpbs 1ms per au-
thentication re-
quest
>1 million transactions
per network
Authentic service availability for higher trans-
actions simultaneously, optimal data exchange,
and replay attack prevention for the data in
transit.
IoT [25] IoT management 30 Gbps <1ms >1 billion transactions
per region
Computationally optimal operations for the
lightweight nodes, and extensibility towards
massive future demands of the network nodes
[6] J. Qiu, D. Grace, G. Ding, J. Yao, and Q. Wu, “Blockchain-
based Secure Spectrum Trading for Unmanned-erial-vehicle-assisted
Cellular Networks: An Operator’s Perspective,” IEEE Internet of
Things Journal, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 451–466, 2019.
[7] S. Yrj¨
ol¨
a, “How could Blockchain transform 6G towards open
ecosystemic business models?” in 2020 IEEE International Confer-
ence on Communications Workshops (ICC Workshops). IEEE, 2020,
pp. 1–6.
[8] M. Crosby, P. Pattanayak, S. Verma, V. Kalyanaraman et al.,
“Blockchain technology: Beyond bitcoin,” Applied Innovation, vol. 2,
no. 6-10, p. 71, 2016.
[9] D. He, C. Chen, J. Bu, S. Chan, and Y. Zhang, “Security and Effi-
ciency in Roaming Services for Wireless Networks: Challenges, Ap-
proaches, and Prospects,” IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 51,
no. 2, pp. 142–150, 2013.
[10] N. Weerasinghe, T. Hewa, M. Dissanayake, M. Ylianttila, and
M. Liyanage, “Blockchain-based roaming and offload service plat-
form for local 5g operators,” in 2021 IEEE 18th Annual Consumer
Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC). IEEE, 2021,
pp. 1–6.
[11] G. Liu and H. Zhao, “Power Allocation and Channel Selection in
Small Cell Networks Based on Traffic-Offloading,” in 2017 First In-
ternational Conference on Electronics Instrumentation & Information
Systems (EIIS). IEEE, 2017, pp. 1–4.
[12] M. Matinmikko, M. Latva-Aho, P. Ahokangas, S. Yrj¨
ol¨
a, and
T. Koivum¨
aki, “Micro Operators to Boost Local Service Delivery in
5G,” Wireless Personal Communications, vol. 95, no. 1, pp. 69–82,
2017.
[13] A. Chaer, K. Salah, C. Lima, P. P. Ray, and T. Sheltami, “Blockchain
for 5g: opportunities and challenges,” in 2019 IEEE Globecom
Workshops (GC Wkshps). IEEE, 2019, pp. 1–6.
[14] Y.-W. Chang, K.-P. Lin, and C.-Y. Shen, “Blockchain Technology for
e-Marketplace,” in 2019 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive
Computing and Communications Workshops (PerCom Workshops).
IEEE, 2019, pp. 429–430.
[15] H. Jeon and B. Lee, “Network Service Chaining Challenges for VNF
Outsourcing in Network Function Virtualization,” in 2015 Interna-
tional Conference on Information and Communication Technology
Convergence (ICTC). IEEE, 2015, pp. 819–821.
[16] R. A. Mishra, A. Kalla, K. Shukla, A. Nag, and M. Liyanage, “B-
vnf: Blockchain-enhanced architecture for vnf orchestration in mec-
5g networks,” in 2020 IEEE 3rd 5G World Forum (5GWF). IEEE,
2020, pp. 229–234.
[17] K. Shafique, B. A. Khawaja, F. Sabir, S. Qazi, and M. Mustaqim,
“Internet of Things (IoT) for Next-Generation Smart Systems: a
Review of Current Challenges, Future Trends and Prospects for
Emerging 5G-IoT Scenarios,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 23 022–
23 040, 2020.
[18] S. Han and X. Zhu, “Blockchain based Spectrum Sharing Algorithm,”
in 2019 IEEE 19th International Conference on Communication
Technology (ICCT). IEEE, 2019, pp. 936–940.
[19] S. Yrj¨
ol¨
a, “Analysis of blockchain use cases in the citizens broadband
radio service spectrum sharing concept,” in International Conference
on Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks. Springer, 2017,
pp. 128–139.
[20] S. Bhattarai, J.-M. J. Park, B. Gao, K. Bian, and W. Lehr, “An
Overview of Dynamic Spectrum Sharing: Ongoing Initiatives, Chal-
lenges, and a Roadmap for Future Research,” IEEE Transactions on
Cognitive Communications and Networking, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 110–
128, 2016.
[21] D. He, C. Chen, J. Bu, S. Chan, and Y. Zhang, “Security and
efficiency in roaming services for wireless networks: challenges, ap-
proaches, and prospects,” IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 51,
no. 2, pp. 142–150, 2013.
[22] B. Mafakheri, T. Subramanya, L. Goratti, and R. Riggio,
“Blockchain-based infrastructure sharing in 5g small cell networks,”
in 2018 14th International Conference on Network and Service
Management (CNSM). IEEE, 2018, pp. 313–317.
[23] I. Badmus, M. Matinmikko-Blue, and J. S. Walia, “Network Slicing
Management Technique for Local 5G micro-operator Deployments ,”
in 2019 16th International Symposium on Wireless Communication
Systems (ISWCS). IEEE, 2019, pp. 697–702.
[24] I. Sarrigiannis, K. Ramantas, E. Kartsakli, P.-V. Mekikis,
A. Antonopoulos, and C. Verikoukis, “Online VNF Lifecycle Man-
agement in an MEC-enabled 5G IoT Architecture,” IEEE Internet of
Things Journal, vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 4183–4194, 2019.
[25] M. Ma, P. Wang, and C.-H. Chu, “Data Management for Internet of
Things: Challenges, Approaches and Opportunities,” in 2013 IEEE
International conference on green computing and communications
and IEEE Internet of Things and IEEE cyber, physical and social
computing. IEEE, 2013, pp. 1144–1151.
[26] K. Shafique, B. A. Khawaja, F. Sabir, S. Qazi, and M. Mustaqim,
“Internet of things (iot) for next-generation smart systems: A review
of current challenges, future trends and prospects for emerging 5g-iot
scenarios,” Ieee Access, vol. 8, pp. 23022–23 040, 2020.
[27] N. Zou, S. Liang, and D. He, “Issues and Challenges of User and
Data Interaction in Healthcare-related IoT,” Library Hi Tech, 2020.
[28] C. Kolias, G. Kambourakis, A. Stavrou, and J. Voas, “DDoS in the
IoT: Mirai and other Botnets,” Computer, vol. 50, no. 7, pp. 80–84,
2017.
[29] H. Desai, M. Kantarcioglu, and L. Kagal, “A Hybrid Blockchain
Architecture for Privacy-Enabled and Accountable Auctions,” in 2019
IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain). IEEE,
2019, pp. 34–43.
[30] N. Nguyen, M. Arifuzzaman, and T. Sato, “A novel wlan roaming
decision and selection scheme for mobile data offloading,” Journal
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, vol. 2015, 2015.
[31] X. Lin, J. Wu, S. Mumtaz, S. Garg, J. Li, and M. Guizani,
“Blockchain-based on-demand Computing Resource Trading in IoV-
assisted Smart City,” IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in
Computing, 2020.
[32] Z. Haddad, M. M. Fouda, M. Mahmoud, and M. Abdallah,
“Blockchain-based Authentication for 5G Networks,” in 2020 IEEE
International Conference on Informatics, IoT, and Enabling Tech-
nologies (ICIoT). IEEE, 2020, pp. 189–194.
[33] S. Zhang and J.-H. Lee, “Analysis of the main consensus protocols
of blockchain,” ICT express, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 93–97, 2020.