Nokia made further strides with its network slicing ambitions, revealing a trial which enabled Android 14 smartphone users to purchase and activate the service directly from their operator.

The Finnish vendor stated the move will deliver improved experiences to users by offering access to dedicated network slices for services including gaming, streaming, broadcasting and social media.

For operators, offering network slices creates a revenue opportunity, whereby they can be purchased in selected areas based on customer demand.

The company, however did not provide details on when the feature will be available.

Nokia, along with Ericsson, made a similar announcement in 2022, when it completed network slicing trials on Android 13.

The latest trial was completed at Nokia’s network slicing development centre in Finland.

It employed Nokia’s IMPACT entitlement and policy control servers, which verifies network slice service availability, promotes packages for the end user and sends purchased service options to the operator BSS, which activates the relevant slice.

The trial also included slice functionality between 4G and 5G, and radio resource allocation for different slices.

Nokia explained network slices can be used for specific use cases, citing the ability for gamers to activate a slice using local cloud applications with enhanced network performance, low latency and edge slicing as an example.

Ari Kynaslahti, head of strategy and technology at Nokia Mobile Network, said the trial is another step in the vendor’s focus on opening new revenue opportunities for operators.