Next generation 5G mobile system will support the vision of connecting all devices that benefit from a connection, and support a wide range of services. Consequently, 5G transport networks need to provide the required capacity, latency, and flexibility in order to integrate the different technology domains of radio, transport, and cloud. This paper outlines the main challenges, which the 5G transport networks are facing and discusses in more detail data plane, control architectures, and the tradeoff between different network abstraction models.