Swedish telecoms firm Ericsson AB is expanding its partnership with Juniper Networks Inc. on a joint “5G transport network” offering that caters to service providers looking to deploy 5G networks with higher bandwidths.

The companies announced the initiative in September, offering a package that includes routers made by both companies, along with management, orchestration and security tools.

Now, the companies are adding “end-to-end network slicing” capabilities to their joint offering. Network slicing is an important feature unique to 5G networks that’s used to optimize the allocation of resources to increase efficiency. It works by separating the control plane, which is the part of a network that carries signaling traffic, from the user plane, which carries networking traffic.

One possible use case for network slicing is cellular vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, wherein a car might communicate with a cloud server in two or more ways. For example, passengers in the vehicle might want to watch a high-bandwidth movie, while the car itself will also be sending and receiving telemetry and other data for autonomous driving. In such cases, it’s best to keep those data streams separate, Ericsson and Juniper say.

The network slicing functionality is made possible by Juniper’s software-defined networking controller, which is being paired with Ericsson’s Dynamic Orchestration software. That allows customerx to set up and automate a slice with specific service attributes related to latency, performance or capacity, the companies said.

The system also leverages Ericsson’s Wide Area Network Orchestrator tool, which helps to configure connectivity. Security gets a boost as well thanks to the integration of Juniper’s SRX and vSRX gateway products with Ericsson’s Radio Access Network.

The two companies said they’ve seen “solid customer momentum” since launching their joint 5G network offering, with more than 20 telecommunications firms from around the world using the new system. These include Thailand-based True Corp.’s TrueMove, Finnish telecommunications company DNA Oyj., and the Pakistani mobile network operator Jazz Telecom S.A.U.

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