Google Fiber has paired with Finnish vendor Nokia to trial network slicing capabilities for home networks.

In a blog post yesterday (June 30), Google Fiber, also known as GFiber, explained that it successfully demoed the technology last week at one of its labs.

Network slicing enables operators to create separate and isolated networks within their wider networks, and each slice can be configured differently. It's a key feature of 5G Standalone (5G SA) networks.

In the case of GFiber, slicing will allow it to "carve up a customer’s home network into different 'lanes,' each optimized for a specific use."

Nick Saporito, head of product, Google Fiber, notes in his blog piece that network slicing can add real-time customization and control at the network level.

The company noted that it used gaming as a test scenario during its GFiber Labs demo. As part of this trial, Google said it ran two gaming consoles next to each other and injected congestion into the network with the lab’s traffic generator.

Details around the technology provided by Nokia for the demo were not revealed.

Google said doing this led to lag, so it then created a dedicated slice in the network that reserved bandwidth just for gaming traffic.

"The result: the driving game demo went from jittery and glitchy to smooth and responsive. This was a foundational test. And it worked," said Saporito.

According to Google, the trial paves the way for opportunity for the company to offer its customers more tailor-made Internet connectivity.

"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," added Saporito.

He also noted the potential for “transactional slices," which he explains would spin up automatically, just for a few seconds, to keep things like financial logins secure. He said this could be used to connect users directly to their bank without routing traffic across the broader Internet.

Google Fiber officially launched in 2010, but the service first went live in Kansas City in 2012. The firm is estimated to serve around 4 million customers.

The company operates in a number of states, including Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington.