Location-Aware B5G LAN-Type Services: Architecture, Use Case, and Challenges

5G LAN-type services are perceived as a key enabling technology for Industry 4.0 due to its local and private group communications comparable to local area networks and virtual private networks with improved 5G capabilities such as quality of service (QoS), mobility, and charging. However, in current 5G LAN-type services, user plane traffic goes through at least one session anchor point (i.e., user plane function (UPF)) even when users are in close proximity, which can significantly increase the end-to-end delay and network load. To address this issue, we propose location-aware beyond 5G (B5G) LAN-type services (LBLS) where the location information is evaluated and the optimal user plane path is established by means of UPF, 5G next-generation Node B (gNB), or nearby user equipment (UE) depending on the location. To enable the LBLS operation, we introduce functional extensions of the 5G control plane and devise user plane establishment procedures to configure the optimal anchor points. Numerical results demonstrate that LBLS can reduce the end-to-end delay by 87 percent compared to the conventional approach.