Network slicing has previously been restricted to 5G Stand Alone (SA) networks, which the IEEE Techblog regularly covers (see References below). However, network slicing software may also have a place in the home broadband network, as per a demo from Google Fiber and Nokia.  Google Fiber says that this use of “network slicing gives us the ability to carve up a customer’s home network into different “lanes,” each optimized for a specific use.”  In a GFiber Labs demo, gaming was used as the test scenario.

Google Fiber placed two gaming consoles next to each other and simulated network congestion, which drove the game’s latency up to 90 milliseconds. Unsurprisingly, “it was stalling, pixelating…a really ill experience for the end user,” said Nick Saporito, Google Fiber’s head of product. “This was a foundational test and it worked,” he added.

In the long-term, this could truly change how home internet works, especially when it’s driven by the customer. Today’s one-size-fits-all connections treat all traffic the same. But we know not everyone uses the internet the same way: gamers care about latency, remote workers need video stability, home businesses rely on solid uptime and security, and, we can see a future where applications (AI, VR, etc.) may require next-level performance. Network slicing could be how we level up network performance.

Network slicing opens the door to something new: the ability for customers to tailor their connection to the categories of Internet use that matter most in their home. It’s not about prioritizing traffic behind the scenes, it’s about giving you more control, more flexibility, and more ways to get the performance you need, when you need it. And with GFiber, it will always be in service of giving customers more control, without compromising our commitment to an open, unrestricted internet.

There’s also potential for something called “transactional slices.” These would spin up automatically, just for a few seconds, to keep things like financial logins secure. For example, connecting you directly to a service like your bank without routing traffic across the broader internet. You wouldn’t even notice it happening, but it could add meaningful peace of mind.

Network slicing is the next logical step in how we think about GFiber service — especially our lifestyle products like Core, Home, and Edge, built to meet the needs of customers’ unique internet lifestyles. Those products are designed to better match the way people live and work. Network slicing takes that a step further: adding real-time customization and control at the network level.

While we’re very excited about the possibilities here, there are few things that have to happen before we roll out network slicing across our network. Automation is a key piece of the puzzle. We’ll be diving deeper with Nokia later this year to explore how we can bring some of these ideas to life. This kind of innovation is exactly what GFiber Labs was built for and we’re excited about potentially leveling up the GFiber customer experience — again.

When considering how to implement network slicing on a wider scale, Saporito noted two key challenges. First, “a lot” of network automation is required to ensure a seamless experience. Google Fiber currently has a “mini-app” that lives on the router to help on the automation front, so that a technician doesn’t have to log onto the router and manually configure the settings.

Another challenge is determining how to effectively sell network slicing capabilities to customers. Given how prevalent multi-gig internet has become, Google Fiber is thinking about whether it makes sense to give customers more “ISP-like controls over their pipe,” Saporito said, rather than just providing a one-size-fits-all product.

“Much like you can put your car in sport or comfort mode, maybe our customers could go to the GFiber app and put their internet in gaming mode, for example, and then all their gaming traffic is special handled by network slicing,” he explained. “Those are ways that we’re kind of thinking about how we would productize it.”

But widespread adoption of broadband network slicing is still a ways away, according to Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen, as most ISPs and equipment providers are still in the proof-of-concept phase. “That being said, if you look down the road and you don’t expect downstream bandwidth consumption to grow as quickly as it historically has, then network slicing could be a way to help ISPs charge more for their service or, less likely, charge for specific slices,” Heynen said.

Aside from improving gaming or AI applications, one interesting use case for slicing is to provide additional security around financial transactions, Heynen noted. An operator could create a slice on a “per-transaction basis,” complementing a more standard encryption method like SSL.

“You could imagine an ISP differentiating themselves from their competition by highlighting that they have the most secure broadband network, for example,” he added. Saporito similarly noted the value of a so-called “transactional slice.” Though Google Fiber has yet to demo the concept, the idea is to create a temporary slice that would work when a customer logs onto their bank account. “We could create an automatic slice in the background to where that banking traffic is going directly to the financial institution’s back-end, versus traversing the transport network,” he said. “The customer wouldn’t even really notice it.”

https://fiber.google.com/blog/2025/06/network-slicing-demo.html

https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/google-fiber-puts-nokia-network-slicing-technology-test

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