This animation follows a simplified packet journey from a sender’s mobile phone to a receiver’s mobile phone.
The journey begins when an application creates an IP packet. The packet is then processed through the device protocol stack and mapped to the appropriate QoS flow and radio bearer.
The 5G network handles it step by step:
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The sender’s phone creates the application data packet.
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The serving gNB schedules radio resources and receives the packet over the 5G air interface.
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The packet travels through the transport network using an N3 GTP-U tunnel.
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The User Plane Function examines the session context and selects the appropriate forwarding path.
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The packet is decapsulated and forwarded through the N6 data network toward the destination application or communication service.
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The corresponding packet is delivered through the destination network path to the receiver’s mobile phone.
The moving circles represent packets continuously flowing across the network. Their slower movement makes every stage easier to observe.
In a real network, this process happens within milliseconds and involves QoS flows, QFI mapping, radio bearers, scheduling, tunnelling, routing, security and congestion management.
A simple message on a mobile screen is supported by a highly coordinated user-plane architecture working behind the scenes.
Note: The visualization simplifies the complete application-to-application path. Depending on the service architecture, traffic may pass through application servers, IMS components, cloud platforms or another operator network before reaching the receiver.
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