Verizon has announced achieving a new milestone after the company said they demonstrated the ability to sustain performance levels for mission critical functions while passing video data over a network slice in a completely commercial 5G environment.

The company described network slicing as a technology that allows customers to send data over virtual end-to-end networks while also optimizing network performance to support all services.

According to Verizon’s Nov. 28 announcement, Verizon’s live 5G network in Phoenix was used by technology company Axon to run side-by-side tests of their Axon Fleet 3 and Axon Respond solutions.

The application, which ran through a Verizon network slice, had sustained performance levels, according to Verizon’s announcement.

Compared to Verizon’s commercial 5G Ultra Wideband network, services on the network slice showed 53 percent improvement in the ninth-fifth percentile of time to first frame, a five percent improvement in start percent, a 68 percent improvement in latency, and an 83 percent improvement in jitter, according to Verizon.

Verizon SVP of Network and Technology Planning Adam Koeppe said Verizon’s network slicing results show that network slicing can be a game changer.

“We have undergone a massive transformation of our network over the past few years, including building on a cloud-native architecture, virtualizing from the core to the edge, building an advanced 5G standalone core, driving capacity in our fiber core, adding robust and varied spectrum assets, and infusing intelligence throughout the network,” he said. “These changes allow us to develop and test this new technology that effectively matches the required network resources with the performance characteristics needed for an app or use case to work effectively.”