5G and beyond networks will transform the healthcare sector by opening possibilities for novel use cases and applications. Service level agreements (SLAs) can enable 5G-enabled medical device use cases by documenting how a medical device communication requirements are met by the unique characteristics of 5G networks and the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders involved in offering safe and effective 5G-enabled healthcare to patients. However, there are gaps in this space that should be addressed to facilitate the efficient implementation of 5G technology in healthcare. Current literature is scarce regarding SLAs for 5G and is absent regarding SLAs for 5G-enabled medical devices. This paper aims to bridge these gaps by identifying key challenges, providing insight, and describing open research questions related to SLAs in 5G and specifically 5G-healthcare systems. This is helpful to network service providers, users, and regulatory authorities in developing, managing, monitoring, and evaluating SLAs in 5G-enabled medical systems.

The exponential rise in mobile traffic originating from mobile devices highlights the need for making mobility management in future networks even more efficient and seamless than ever before. Ultra-Dense Cellular Network vision consisting of cells of varying sizes with conventional and mmWave bands is being perceived as the panacea for the eminent capacity crunch. However, mobility challenges in an ultradense heterogeneous network with motley of high frequency and mmWave band cells will be unprecedented due to plurality of handover instances, and the resulting signaling overhead and data interruptions for miscellany of devices. Similarly, issues like user tracking and cell discovery for mmWave with narrow beams need to be addressed before the ambitious gains of emerging mobile networks can be realized. Mobility challenges are further highlighted when considering the 5G deliverables of multi-Gbps wireless connectivity, <1ms latency and support for devices moving at maximum speed of 500km/h, to name a few. Despite its significance, few mobility surveys exist with the majority focused on adhoc networks. This paper is the first to provide a comprehensive survey on the panorama of mobility challenges in the emerging ultra-dense mobile networks. We not only present a detailed tutorial on 5G mobility approaches and highlight key mobility risks of legacy networks, but also review key findings from recent studies and highlight the technical challenges and potential opportunities related to mobility from the perspective of emerging ultra-dense cellular networks.

The rapid evolution of cellular system design towards 5G and beyond gives rise to a need for investigation of the new features, design proposals and solutions in realistic settings for various deployments and use case scenarios. While many system level simulators for 4G and 5G exist today, there is particularly a dire need for a 3GPP compliant system level holistic and realistic simulator that can support evaluation of the plethora of AI based network automation solutions being proposed in literature. In this paper we present such a simulator developed at AI4networks Lab, called SyntheticNET. To the best of authors' knowledge, SyntheticNET is the very first python-based simulator that fully conforms to 3GPP 5G standard release 15 and is upgradable to future releases. The key distinguishing features of SyntheticNET compared to existing simulators include: 1) a modular structure to facilitate cross validation and upgrading to future releases; 2) flexible propagation modeling using measurement based, ray tracing based or AI based propagation modeling; 3) ability to import data sheet based on measurement based realistic vendor specific base station features such as antenna and energy consumption pattern; 4) support for 5G standard based adaptive numerology; 5) realistic and user-specific mobility patterns that are yielded from actual geographical maps; 6) detailed handover (HO) process implementation; and 7) incorporation of database aided edge computing. Another key feature of the SyntheticNET is the ease with which it can be used to test AI based network automation solutions. Being the first python based 5G simulator, this ease, in part stems for SyntheticNET's built-in capability to process and analyze large data sets and integrated access to Machine Learning libraries. Thus, SyntheticNET simulator offers a powerful platform for academia and industry alike to investigate not only new solutions for optimally designing, deploying and operating existing and emerging cellular networks but also for enabling AI empowered deep automation in the future. INDEX TERMS 5G, cellular networks, network simulator, flexible frame structure, mobility, edge computing.