Prioritizing protection communication in a 5G slice: Evaluating HTB traffic shaping and UL bitrate adaptation for enhanced reliability

Abstract 5G network slicing is promising in prioritizing time‐critical protection communication wireless networks of smart grids. However, offered by telecommunication providers encompasses all grid applications, lacking granularity. Smart automation standards provide recommendations on prioritization to improve reliability but only for wired connections. Therefore, this paper investigates hierarchical token bucket (HTB) traffic shaping and uplink (UL) bitrate adaptation a live video stream within slice. An experimental setup combines controller‐hardware‐in‐the‐loop (CHIL) with quality service (QoS) measurement system validation. The under test consists commercial networks, intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), merging units validation three applications: fault location, line differential, intertrip protection. HTB improves protected faults 47.57% congested 1.16% non‐congested scenarios. UL the 2 Mbps increases 3.69%. even connection without introducing additional delays. must be deployed routers maintain good QoS critical applications. Collaboration between utilities essential effectively deploy