Embracing Open Ecosystem

Dr. Chih-Lin I CMCC Chief Scientist, Wireless Technologies, CMRI Technical Steering Committee Co-chair, O-RAN Alliance

5G Transformation with Open Source, ONF Spotlight Sep. 9th, 2020

1 Global 5G Landscape

Commercial launches by 81, investment by 386 carriers (deployment and verification)

Europe: 5G commercialized by 34 carriers in 17 countries China: World's largest commercial 5G networks, 480k+ sites • Sunrise in Switzerland: 300+ towns (: 250k); 600k+ sites by end of 2020 in 340+ major • BT/EE in the UK: 16 cities, involving 1,500+ sites cities; largest user base at 130+ million sub (Aug 31) • Vodafone: 58 cities in 7 countries, roaming available

South Korea: World's first 5G network in 2019, having 5+ million users Japan: 5G launched in March 2020

Australia: 5G launched by Optus and Telstra in Q2 2019

America: 9 carriers U.S.: 5G launched by top 4 carriers based on 3GPP Release 15 Africa: 3 carriers South Africa: 5G launched by Rain in Middle East: commercial 5G launched by 13 carriers in October 2019 in Johannesburg, Durban, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain Pretoria, and other major cities 2 Source: GSA report, June 2020 2 China’s 5G Rollout since June 2019

Build the largest 5G commercial network in the world

480k+ base stations were deployed by the end of Aug

5G users had surpassed 130+ million by the end of Aug

197+ models of 5G smartphones had obtained certifications by the end of Aug

Number of 5g base 400+ 5G application trials had been completed, stations in each province including industrial internet, transportation, and 20000+ 10000-20000 healthcare, etc. 5000-10000 1000-5000 0-1000 3 Data source: ICT Institute3 5G Standardization: Basic, Enhanced, Extended

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Rel-15 NSA Rel-15 NSA Rel-15 SA Rel-15 SA Rel-17 package (option-3) (option-2) approval Rel-17 SI/WI Phase (option-3) (option-2) Rel-15 late Rel-15 late freeze ASN.1 freeze ASN.1 drop freeze drop ASN.1 Rel-17 Rel-17 stage- RAN1 3 freeze freeze RAN2/3/4(co Rel-16 SI Rel-16 SI/WI phase re) Rel-17 Rel-17 stage- Rel-17 ASN.1 RAN1 3 freeze Rel-16 freeze RAN2/3/4 freeze Rel-17 ASN.1

R15 R16 R17

• key tech. and architecture latency:1ms • Performance Optimization Latency: 0.5~1ms • Enhanced intelligence 1M connection/km2 • Basic design Reliability 99.999% • Enhanced To B support Reliability 99.9999% • Service optimization Sub-meter positioning • To B and To C 500km/h high mobility • N/W intelligence Meter-level posiiton • N/W optimization 1000km/h mobility

4 4 5G: ICT Convergence ICDT Convergence

ICT Convergence Green & Soft

Cloud Big Data 4G 5G AI/ML 6G SDN & NFV Smart Data Driven Soft MEC Open & Smart X86 ICDT Convergence

C-RAN NFV Open5G WAIA O-RAN

5 5 RAN Transformation: a Long Journey

C-RAN baseband pool R&D C-RAN field trials 5G smart RAN 1, C-RAN Alliance launched & CU-DU 1, Design, development and test on front- 1, Large-scale field trials in over 10 cities architecture accepted by 3GPP end accelerator 2, PoC field demonstration on virtualized 2, WAIA: Proposal of RDA concept for 2, First soft 4G BS PoC based on COTS C-RAN the first time with AI-based wireless big platform 3, Evaluation of NGFI & design of CU/DU data architecture 3, 1st field trial in commercial networks architecture, anchor CU for reliability 3, In-hours PoC development on cloud- 4, Adding RAN in ETSI NFV ISG WP 4. Established IEEE 1914 WG 5. ITU-T 5G FG based CU-DU with demonstration with commercial RRU&UE 2012-2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

C-RAN PoC development 5G C-RAN O-RAN 1, OTA test with commercial EPC , RRU 1, Continuous refinement on design of 1, Open & Smart and UE CU-DU architecture and the interface 2, RIC 2, Proposal of NGFI (xHaul) concept 2, In-house PoC development of gNB 3, Arch & Interface 3, Proposal of CU-DU architecture with CU-DU, MANO and cloud platform 3, Carrier-grade cloud platform proposal 4, Open source 5, …… CU_DU VM accepted by Openstack RT-Linux+ Front- CN PCIe CPRI SmarTile Driver End

6 6 O-RAN: Open & Smart RAN

Vision of O-RAN

NMS MANO 5G CN

5G CU Big Data Open Interface & MEC Analytics & AI Architecture

CU-C CU-U

E2 E1 Intelligence & Intelligent • Big Data-based RRM Standardization Management • Intelligent computing- based apps RAN NFVI • E2, E3 Interface Standardization NGFI-II CU • Open Interface of protocol stack Open Source & • Open Capability of Edge Computing Virtualization 5G DU DU • Open Interface (NGFI-I/NGFI-II) NGFI-I

AAU/RU whitebox •Open-source Software, &Reference design AAU/RU white-box open reference design

7 7 O-RAN Reference Arch & TSC: 9 WGs, 3 FGs,1 OSC

WG1: Use cases & Overall architecture AT&T & CMCC

Design Inventory Policy Configuratio RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) CMCC, AT&T n non-RT Standards Dev. & E///, Orchestration & Automation (e.g. ONAP): MANO, NMS Focus Group WG2: RIC(non-RT) A1 & A1 Interface RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) near-RT DT, CMCC & ApplicationsE Layer , Samsung Radio QoS Interferenc 3rd party 2 Mobility Trained Orange, DOCOMO & E/// Connection Mgm e APP Mgmt Model WG3: RIC(near-RT) Mgmt t. Mgmt Test & Integration WG5: open F1/ Radio-Network Information & E2 Interface W1/E1/X1/Xn inf. Base Focus Group E2 :btw RIC near-RT and CU/DU CMCC & AT&T CU-CP CU-UP Multi-RAT RRC E1 SDAP WG9: Open X-haul CMCC, AT&T CU Protocol Stack PDCP- PDCP- transport Intel & Radisys C U WG8: Stack DOCOMO, Verizon Open Source reference design NFVI Platform: Virtualization layer and COTS platform F1 & Nokia, Cisco Community WG4: Open FH AT&T, ORANGE, Interface Open Source Lenovo & Ciena DU: RLC/MAC/PHY-high Focus Group WG6: Open Front Haul CMCC, AT&T, Cloudification & QCM & Baicells MANO Enhance RU: PHY-low/RF WG7: White-Box 8 8 Open Reference Design: 5G Ecosystem Transformation

• Enable players with diverse domain expertise to participate • Lower the technical entry barrier for new entrants • Create source diversity for healthier ecosystem

Traditional Ecosystem Ecosystem based on ORD

Horizontal Hardware Software Decoupling Provider Provider System Vertical CU DU … RU Open Ref. Design Provider Provider Vendor Decoupling Provider

System Integrator

Private R&D Open Ref. Design System System 9 9 CMCC Whitebox Field Trials: 4G in 2019, 5G in 2020

Goal 4G WB field trial (2019)  Suzhou field trial：focusing on stability verification of cloud  Verify the functional integrity, stability and reliability of platform covering an area of 1500 square meters about 200 5g cloud pico station both in public network and the users. This system worked without stability problem during vertical industry,. at least 30 days.  Evaluation of integrated deployment cost (CAPEX/OPEX)  Verify system reliability (general platform with HA/ dedicated platform) User tidal migration  Extension for future intelligent RAN scenario research

Cell_1 5G WB field trial participating provinces

 B, C, F, G, J (LTE&NR), S, Z Cell_2 Cell_3

2019.Q3 2019.Q4 2020.Q1 2020.Q2 2020.Q3 2020.Q4 2021-future

LTE pico station lab NR pico station lab NR pico station intelligent RIC test & field trial test field trial extension 10 10 Roadmap of O-RAN Whitebox

• Architecture selection, function • Release of 1st version of deployment • Key component selection and building reference design decomposition and requirements for BS WB scenarios and use case document • Draft 4 specifications of the reference design of IPC whitebox • POC 1st version prototype IN MWC Europe • WB reference architecture • 1st WB RU POC demo at MWC Europe • POC 2nd version prototype IN MWC Shanghai • Release Schematic level reference design for RU and Accelerator for IPC 2019 Q3

2019 Q1 2019 Q2 2019 Q4 2020 Q1 RU characters: Accelerator characters： •Operating band: 2.6GHz, 2.6GHz+2.3GHz •Networking : NSA/SA •Channel BW: 100MHz •Capacity : 3cell* 4T4R 100Mhz NR+ 5cell*4T4R 20MHz LTE •Port Num: 2T2R, 4T4R+2T2R(LTE) •Fronthaul : CPRI/eCPRI

Indoor Picocell (FR1) deployment Outdoor Macrocell(FR1) Outdoor Picocell (FR2) scenario: • Develop HW architecture and requirement specifications • Develop one HW architecture and requirement spec and reference design • Release 4 specs • Develop HW reference design Specs: one for FR1 specifications

• O-RAN.WG7.DSC.0-v02.00 Indoor Picocell (FR1) deployment scenario: • O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HAR.0-v01.00 • Release spec for HRD v1.0 for option 6 IPC reference design and hardware • Release spec for HRD v2.0 for option 8 • O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt7-2.0-v01.00 using ASIC • O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt7-8.0-v01.00 • Release spec for HRD v2.0 for option 7-2 • 2020 Q2 2020 Q3 2020 Q4 2021 Q1 2021 Q2 2021 Q3 Outdoor Microcell(FR1) Outdoor Microcell(FR1) • Develop HW architecture and requirement specifications • Develop HW architecture and requirement specification V2 11• Develop HW reference design Specs: one for FR1 • Develop HW reference design Specs: V2 one for FR1 11 11 O -RA N Softw are C om m unity (O -RA N SC ) structure

• … under (LF) O-RAN Open Source Community • … sponsored by O-RAN Alliance to develop open source software to realize O-RAN components and systems • The O-RAN SC Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) will be responsible for all technical oversight of the open source project www.o-ran-sc.org

1 April, 2018, preminlinary discussion with LF

1 Oct, 2018, Open Source Focus Group formed

1 April 2, 2019, O-RAN SC officially set up

1 May, 2019, project kick-off, seed code uploaded

Nov. 30, 2019, Amber Release 4 © 2018 A T& T Intellectual Property. A ll rights reserved. A T& T, G lobe logo, M obilizing Your W orld and D IREC TV are registered tradem arks and service m arks of A T& T Intellectual Property and/or A T& T affiliated com panies. A ll other m arks are the property of their respective ow ners. 1 • 1M+ lines of codes from • 60+ committers via • 10+ companies Innovative dual licensing policy 12 12 O-RAN OSC Projects at a Glance

Project Key PTL Description open source sample xAPPs and platform applications for integration, testing, and RICAPP Matti Hiltunen (AT&T) demonstrations. RIC Thoralf Czichy (Nokia) Initial RIC Platform to support xAPPs with limited support for O1, A1, and E2 interfaces.

OCU Yingying Wang (CMCC) software deliverable for O-CU.

ODU (High and Sachin Srivastava (Radisys) & Focus on initial L1/2 functional blocks Low) Zhimin Yuan (Intel) OAM Martin Skorupski (Highstreet) O1-related sysdev; initial dashboard for monitoring and demonstration of contributions. SIM Alex Stancu (Highstreet) Initial simulators used for testing O-RAN interfaces. INF XiaohuaZhang (Windriver) Initial building blocks for infrastructure to run O-RAN NF components.

To test the requirements documented in each release. This will focus on end to end test INT Lusheng Ji (AT&T) and use case testing.

DOC Weichen Ni (CMCC) Documentation on contributions and O-RAN SC contents.

Non-realtime RIC focus on feature functionality of A1-interface (consumer and provider), NONRTRIC John Keeney (Ericsson) and closed-loop use cases. 13 13 13 Two Releases in 2020

• Bronze release (June 21, 2020): • >3M lines of code contributed by >80 contributors from >15 companies • Key features/highlights • Two E2E use cases: traffic steering and health check • O-DU-LOW: OFH interface and FAPI interface implementation • O-DU-HIGH: E2 initiation and setup; subset of E2 messages to support traffic steering • O-CU: open source CU-U plane implementation with F1-U support in form of binary code • nRT RIC: (from pre-spec. to be) compliant with E2 spec. v1.0, E2 setup/failure, xAPP onboarding etc. • xAPP: various xAPPs for traffic steering, management, KPI monitoring etc. • NRT RIC: A1 flow implementation and test; policy mangement with GUI • OAM: health check on O1 flow • INF: Container-based O-Cloud design with real-time support & support of ARM-based realtime Kubernetes cluster • SIM: enhancement implemented, e.g. E2 ingest data pipeline from trace file; • INT: Partial CI/CD pipeline, Deployment artifact automation, Open Test Framework (OTF) integrated

• Cherry Release (Dec. 2021) kicked off 14 14 14 RIC (Intelligence) Is One of the Keys to Vertical Industry

Service Management & Orchestration Non-RT RAN Intelligent Controller The primary goal of the Non-RT RIC is Non-Real Time RIC to support non-real-time radio resource >= 1 second management, policy optimization in Non-RT Control loop O2 O1 A1 RAN and providing guidance, O-RAN Network Functions parameters, policies and AI/ML models to support the operation of near-RT RIC Near-Real Time RIC functions in the RAN. >= 10 ms < 1 second Non-RT Control loop E2 Near-RT RAN Intelligent Controller O-gNB A logical function described by the O- RAN Alliance, targeted for near real- E2 < 10 ms RT Control loop time control and optimization of E2 O-eNB nodes functions and resources, by fine- grained data collection and actions over the E2 interface. O-Cloud 15 15 Non-RT RIC OSC Project and Reference Design

 OSC Non-RT RIC Project Rel. A (Nov. 2019)  Initial A1 Adapter/Controller  Implements a subset of the A1 Policy LCM functions based on a “pre-spec” version of A1 protocol UI NMS GIS ...

 Prototype RESTCONF-based NBI for A1 mediation interface to Non-RT RIC

allow messages to be sent up/down A1 interface AI Model Repository Online AI Model Execute Non-RT RIC Core and Management

Inference UI CMD NMS Interaction GIS Interaction ... Task Task FTP/SFTP  OSC Non-RT RIC Project Rel. B (June 2020) Execute&Report Execute&Report TF/Caffé/Spark MLib/... AI Training data set Workflow Management Management Workflow Generate  Implement O-RAN WG2 A1 spec (Release 1.x) AI Model Repository Workflow Context Management AI Task Generate PM Job Generate A1 Policy Admin  Implement A1 policy management service Online AI Model Management PM Job Context A1 Policy Design Training Data Set Offline AI Model Train Offlin AI Model AI Task Maintenance  Demonstrate simple end-to-end usecase (NONRTRIC, OAM TASK VES&DMaaP A/D/M A1 Policy Context Data Pre-processing Task Task Model Training Management Execute&Re Execute&Re Data Modeling, Data Statistics A1 Policy Management Create/Remove Topic functions, near-RTRIC, xNF, …. ) port port Feature Engineeing Training Data Data Spark Platform (HIVE/IMPALA) TF/Caffé/Spark MLib/... A1 Policy Repository A1 Data Processing Engine  Prototype initial support for observability of policy-affected Preparation Retrieving indicators for policy assessment Topic: Feed: Message Router Data Router DMaaP  Demonstrate Prototype “R-APP” (SMO / Non-RealTime-RIC O-RAN O-RAN application-level function)  Demonstrate prototype deployment of ML model in near-RT DCAE VF-C PNDA(Spark) PM Mapper Homels A1 Adaptor O1 Adaptor RIC O-RAN extension NFVO

EM Adaptor VES Collector HV-VES Collector DataFile Collector REST + JSON TLS/TCP,GPB SFTP/FTP A1 Adaptor REST + JSON TLS/TCP + GPB SFTP/FTP

Container

O1 Interface xNF A1 Interface

16 16 Near-RT RIC OSC Project

. OSC Near-RT RIC Project Rel. A . RIC Platform Project • Application/microservices framework to host multiple xApps • A message bus to publish and subscribe messages inside near-RT RIC • A1 mediator to relay basic policies from Non-RT RIC to near-RT RIC • E2 Termination agent to interface with O-CU • R-NIB DBaaS to store RAN state information • E2 manager to transact E2 data into the R-NIB . RIC APP Project • xApps: Access Control, Measurement Campaign, KPI monitor

. OSC Near-RT RIC Project Rel. B . Traffic steering use case . E2/A1/O1 Alignment . Platform hardening: performance improvement, tracing support, health check & recovery 17 17 Call for Industry Collaboration

OSC Cherry Release being developed

18 18 Open Testing and Integration (OTIC) & 1st Global Plugfest (Nov. 2019)

Asia OTIC Lab North America OTIC Lab

• Asia OTIC in Beijing has been launched (9 Nov. 2019，by China Mobile, China Telecom & China Unicom） • Dec 2019, O-RAN OSC Amber Release, over 3 sites coordinated by - achieve decoupling tiered commercial procurement capability AT&T • Asia OTICs in Japan & India is in planning • Sep 2020 for O-RAN open interface specs w/ O-RAN OSC Bronze Release & real equipment & simulators. European OTIC Lab

• Supported by DT, Orange, Telefonica and TIM (and open for others…) • Two physical locations currently: • Berlin in Germany (hosted by DT in partnership with Orange) & Torino in Italy (hosted by TIM) • Collaboration with TIP based on recent O-RAN/TIP LA (initially joint lab in Berlin) • On Open FH interface (O-RU/O-DU) and ONAP - O-RAN integration & testing (O1) • Virtualized RAN solutions testing and integration • Non-RT and Near-RT RIC co-development and testing (E2, A1) 19 19 Two Years of Great Momentum: 220 Members

O-RAN WP

• 6 PoC in MWC Shanghai • O-RAN Board meeting • Virtual F2F Launch of O-RAN Open • O-RAN Industry Forum • Virtual exhibition Source Community (with LF) • MVP • Bronze Release. 2018.09 2019.04 2019.06 • Cherry Rel.

2018.10, official launch 2019.02 2019.05 2019.12 2020.02 2020.06 2020.9 2020.12 2018.06: O-RAN of O-RAN • White-Box Small BS Workshop • 7 new spec. founding meeting • Open reference design • 17 new spec • 22 Demos for • 2nd Plugfest MWCB • 1st O-RAN Spec.: Open • Establishment of OTIC FH interface • Amber Release • O-RAN MWC (7 PoC) • 1st Plugfest • O-RAN seminar in MWC

• 53 Published specification since Feb. 2019 • 2 Open Source software release • 1 Global Plugfest event 20 • 31 Demos in O-RAN virtual exhibition (https://www.virtualexhibition.o-ran.org/) 20 The Harbinger of Global Ecosystem Transformation

• Vodafone: to purchase >100,000 China Unicom: MoU on OpenRAN BSs in 14 countries; OpenRAN 5G NR with TIP; • Deutsche Telekom: Plan on Evenstar NRT-RIC test with solution RRU with Mavenir, Parallel wireless; provided by ONF. • Turkcell: plan to deploy OpenRAN/vRAN.

Rakuten: 4G O-RAN network has been deployed ; • AT&T: nRT-RIC/FH test 5G Open RAN solution test and trial; with TPG in Singapore. • DISH network: plan to deploy 5G O-RAN network NTT DOCOMO: 5G network starting from scratch; with O-RAN FH and X2 • Verizon: O-RAN FH interfaces commercialized interface lab test w/ 5G in Sep 2019. equipment.

• Etisalat: Open RAN test with Parallel Wireless in the Middle East, Africa, Aisa.

21 21 Green & Soft Open & Smart ICDT Deep Convergence!

SDO, Open Source, Native AI A Perfect Storm!

Thank You! [email protected]

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