Trustworthy Inter-Provider Agreements in 6G Using a Privacy-Enabled Hybrid Blockchain Framework

TL;DR

The paper tackles trust management for inter-provider agreements in 6G by delivering a privacy-enabled hybrid blockchain framework built on Hyperledger Besu. It combines public service discovery with private, privacy-grouped contract enforcement to balance transparency and confidentiality, implemented as modular, role-based smart contracts aligned with the 5Growth-NFV-MANO architecture. Empirical evaluation on a multi-node Besu/Tessera setup shows public operations incur ~5 seconds latency, while private operations incur higher latency due to off-chain cryptographic processing, underscoring the privacy-performance trade-off. The work offers practical design lessons for scalable, interoperable inter-domain coordination in 6G, including contract modularization, privacy-group management, and validator configurations for IBFT 2.0-enabled networks.

Abstract

Inter-provider agreements are central to 6G networks, where administrative domains must securely and dynamically share services. To address the dual need for transparency and confidentiality, we propose a privacy-enabled hybrid blockchain setup using Hyperledger Besu, integrating both public and private transaction workflows. The system enables decentralized service registration, selection, and SLA breach reporting through role-based smart contracts and privacy groups. We design and deploy a proof-of-concept implementation, evaluating performance using end-to-end latency as a key metric within privacy groups. Results show that public interactions maintain stable latency, while private transactions incur additional overhead due to off-chain coordination. The block production rate governed by IBFT 2.0 had limited impact on private transaction latency, due to encryption and peer synchronization. Lessons learned highlight design considerations for smart contract structure, validator management, and scalability patterns suitable for dynamic inter-domain collaboration. Our findings offer practical insights for deploying trustworthy agreement systems in 6G networks using privacy-enabled hybrid blockchains.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: High-level view of the blockchain system architecture for inter-provider agreements integrated with DLT
• Figure 2: Proposed framework, key components highlighted in color red and their interactions public and private within privacy groups.
• Figure 3: A multi-node Hyperledger Besu network supporting both public and private transactions for Privacy-Enabled Inter-Provider DApp.
• Figure 4: Latency analysis for deploying contract within privacy groups and handling private transactions