Is Open RAN Key to the 5G Future?

Is Open RAN key to the 5G future?

By Sean Kinney

JUNE 2016

SEPTEMBER 2020

Report Sponsors: FEATURE REPORT

Introduction telecom giant being pinned down between now and 2025. For Open The true benefits of 5G will be by a lack of access to components RAN radios, the firm projects ship- realized with massive scale – some- and markets. In this report, we will ments will pass 1 million in the next thing that operators will have to explore the latest developments in five years. pay mightily to achieve. In car- the Open RAN world, including per- Dell’Oro Group VP and analyst rier-led efforts to shift network spectives from vendors, operators, Stefan Pongratz conceded the pro- economics in their favor, the Open politicians and other ecosystem jections may seem “overly optimis- RAN (radio access network) eco- stakeholders in an effort to under- tic” given that Open RAN technol- system has flourished in recent stand whether Open RAN is key to ogy is “relatively untested,” but, years and is potentially poised for a the 5G future. “At the same time, the momentum big breakthrough. A key distinction here is the is improving, and we have adjust- Major global communication ser- overlap, and difference, between ed the outlook upward to reflect vice providers like Telefónica and virtualized RAN and Open RAN a confluence of factors, includ- Vodafone are exploring multi-ven- – virtualized RAN decouples hard- ing promising results from initial dor RAN solutions for their network ware and software allowing net- commercial deployments, growing footprints. In Japan, relatively new work functions typically run on support from the incumbent RAN market entrant Rakuten Mobile has a proprietary technology stack to suppliers, and increased geopolit- used an open architecture to build exist as software workloads using ical uncertainty acting as a cata- its fully-virtualized network and is commodity or custom hardware lyst for operators to rethink their evangelizing its open, cloud-native whereas Open RAN considers the supplier strategies.” approach as bringing a huge reduc- same but adds in modularity where- Mobile Experts Chief Analyst Joe tion in capital and operating costs. in hardware and software from Madden also sees a bright future DISH is following a similar path in multiple vendors can interoperate. for Open RAN but drew an import- the U.S. but has yet to turn its own To contextualize Open RAN mo- ant distinction between sub-6 GHz internal efforts into a reference de- mentum, Dell’Oro Group recently gear as a coverage play as opposed sign á la the Rakuten Communica- published a five-year forecast re- to millimeter wave-based systems tions Platform. port that projects vRAN revenues, geared towards multi-gigabit-per- Further, geopolitical issues have “defined as the proportion of RAN second throughput. Madden wrote prompted an examination of ven- baseband/compute capex that that, “Almost every company in dor diversification and how to will utilize general-purpose pro- the [RAN] market is looking into foster innovation through govern- cessors for centralized radio units O-RAN, which will be the choice ment investment; this is primarily and/or distributed radio units. solution for coverage problems. a function of U.S. sanctions against Dell’Oro forecasts that capex will O-RAN hardware and software can China’s Huawei resulting in the hit between $3 billion and $5 billion be cheaper while achieving similar

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coverage as traditional architec- Functional split a virtualized baseband unit, which tures. Considering a five-year time- The notion of functional splits can be further subdivided into a frame, Madden sees “rapid adoption in the RAN first came up in 3GPP central unit and a distributed unit. of O-RAN” coming, but focused on Release 14 and was further defined That idea of subdividing function- fronthaul and F1 radio interfaces. in Release 15. The high-level idea is ality, in terms of either physical lo- Regarding higher-frequency sys- that the primary 5G use cases — en- cation, type of workload or both, is tems, “We have...identified some hanced mobile broadband (eMBB), core to Open RAN and, more broad- major performance issues with ultra reliable low latency commu- ly, 5G. And if different vendors pro- O-RAN networks.” nications (URLLC), and massive in- vide different pieces, there has to ternet of things — require a highly be an interoperability framework. The vocabulary flexible RAN architecture marked Like most things telecom, Open by a, well, split of control and user Central unit RAN brings with it a complex al- plane baseband unit functions to The central unit, or CU, supports phabet soup of acronyms and ini- enable a more feature rich, respon- non-real time Layer 2 and Layer 3 tialisms. Here we’re providing brief sive network that can adapt to sup- workloads like RRC and PDCP. In explanations of some key terminol- port a wide variety of use cases and the context of Open RAN, this is ogy. And, to be sure, this is a super- deployment configurations. software hosted on a server that ficial description of the following The specific components, delin- can be located in an edge datacen- terms and a fraction of the full set eated below, require open interfac- ter, cell site, central office, regional of relevant jargon. es between remote radios units and datacenter, or even co-located with

Image courtesy of Altran

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the distributed unit. A CU can sup- elements can collapse together and the trial met its goals of improving port multiple distributed units con- create a single physical entity with spectral efficiency. Measurement nected via midhaul. different virtual functionalities.” and optimization xApps were used to collect live network data. In this Distributed unit RAN Intelligent Controller case the partners used Measure- The distributed unit, DU, handles The RAN Intelligent Controller ment Campaign, Automated Neigh- real-time L1 and L2 scheduling, (RIC) is a software platform re- bor Relation and Admission Control. baseband and RF processing, RLC, sponsible for radio orchestration Describing the trial, Tavares said, MAC and some PHY functions. Sche- and management; it supports ap- “It was focused on one specific part matically the DU sites between the plications like mobility and in- of the city so not many sites. One CU and the remote radio unit but, terference management, network thing that is important to learn in both theory and practice, the DU policies, admission control and so from the architecture is that one server can be co-located with the forth. In a vRAN, the RIC collects, RIC instance can support several CU, at a cell site, at an edge cloud analyzes and acts upon network base station sites. The way the ar- site or in a central office. data to optimize user experience chitecture is evolving, and especial- using artificial intelligence and ly on 5G networks, you can have Remote radio unit machine learning algorithms. The the RIC co-localized with the cen- The remote radio unit (RRU) in- RIC comes in two flavors, near-real tralized until that basically han- cludes the digital front end, some time and non-real time; the former dles that part of the baseband pro- PHY layer functions, digital beam- runs xApps that pool data from all cessing. Then, from that, you can forming and other features associ- forms of radio infrastructure to actually manage up to hundreds of ated with legacy cellular radios. continuously optimize user experi- distributed units that are going to RRUs come in a variety of form ence and network efficiency based be deployed in a city.” factors informed by manufactur- on fluctuating demand and re- While the focus in this trial was on er and site-specific deployment source availability while the latter RAN optimization, Tavares said this considerations. takes on things like configuration, premise could be extended and open Parallel Wireless VP of Marketing device, fault, performance and life- up “new possibilities of third-party Eugina Jordan tied it all togeth- cycle management. applications on top of the network. er: “The future evolution of RAN In June Nokia and AT&T conduct- Basically any service that would will be toward dynamic function- ed a RIC trial on the carrier’s mil- benefit from having access to low al splits...The functionality of the limeter wave 5G network in New latency could benefit from having a RAN will be distributed between York City. Nokia’s Sandro Tavares, more direct connection to the RAN. DUs and CUs as it is defined in global head of mobile networks For example, in just an anecdotal 5G...In different scenarios, these marketing, told RCR Wireless News way, if you’re looking to a video

4 OCTOBER 13TH DIGITAL

The definitive event shaping the future of Open RAN

• Policy Support Should U.S. Lawmakers allocate federal funding for Open RAN R&D?

• Supply Chain Diversification Open RAN conversations are steeped in geopolitics, but WHAT'S ON does vendor diversification make supply chains more secure and resilient?

• Ready for “primetime”? Was Attorney General Barr correct when he said Open RAN isn’t ready for primetime?

WHAT'S INCLUDED? Access to all contents Q&As with speakers, live polling, chat with attendees Sponsor demos and hangouts Happy hour with professional mixology lesson Intimate, topic-driven group networking sessions (VIP only) Free ‘goodie bag’ with cocktail kit, exclusive coupons and freebies (VIP only) Access to all sessions on-demand for 6 months post- conference (VIP only) FEATURE REPORT Image courtesy of O-RAN Alliance. Image courtesy of O-RAN Alliance.

streaming service or a video com- standpoint. By promoting policies Telefónica, US Ignite, Verizon, VM- munication service, you can have an that standardize and develop open Ware, Vodafone, World Wide Tech- xApp that can optimize the delivery interfaces, we can ensure interoper- nology, and XCOM-Labs. of the video to the terminals.” ability and security across different Shortly after its launch, Nokia players and potentially lower the joined the group. Brian Hendricks, The players barrier to entry for new innovators.” Nokia’s VP of government rela- Open RAN Policy Coalition The founding members were: Air- tions in the Americas, in discuss- In May this year, the Open RAN span, Altiostar, AWS, AT&T, Cisco, ing the incumbent vendor’s move Policy Coalition was established to CommScope, Dell, DISH Network, to join, described an emerging advocate for “vendor choice and Facebook, Fujitsu, Google, IBM, In- narrative wherein the Open RAN flexibility in next-generation net- tel, Juniper Networks, Mavenir, Mi- ecosystem has created a falsely work deployments,” as Executive crosoft, NEC Corporation, NewEdge adversarial relationship between Director Diane Rinaldo put it at Signal Solutions, NTT, Oracle, Par- legacy vendors “and, on the other the time. This is necessary, she said, allel Wireless, Qualcomm, Rakuten, side, folks that wanted to create a “from a security and performance Samsung Electronics America, new ecosystem.”

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There is a sense among poli- that could bolster the U.S.’s position whole Policy Coalition is about. cymakers, he continued, where, in 5G tech particularly as it relates Let the vendor community decide “They felt like they’d be making a to Chinese companies and Chi- whether they want to compete in choice. If they did things that were nese government-led investments. the space or not.” more supportive of an acceleration Papa explained that Open RAN is While Ericsson has a formidable of openness that they’d be harm- allowing “more innovators to par- presence in 5G networking with ing us. We don’t think that’s true ticipate, which is good. But more more than 100 global carrier con- either.” In joining the Open RAN importantly, the U.S. government is tracts, as well as an ever-advancing Policy Coalition, Hendricks said, waking up to its role in supporting set of vRAN, cloud RAN and atten- Nokia is saying, “Let’s eliminate the semiconductor market.” He has dant products, it has not thrown in the point that we’re not together called out the Made in China 2025 with the Policy Coalition. In a state- as an ecosystem and, perhaps, that focus on developing semiconductor ment to RCR Wireless News issued provides an impetus for action.” expertise and other moves he char- in May, the Swedish vendor said it The initial slate expanded in acterized as “a state actor tipping believes in “openness and that prod- June with new members Ciena, the playing field…Our commercial uct architecture needs to evolve to Cohere Technologies, Crown Cas- market in communications infra- support open interfaces and a mul- tle, DeepSig, Hewlett Packard En- structure equipment is being dis- titude of use cases in the future… terprise, JMA Wireless, Marvell torted by a state actor. We can let [But] this evolution needs to be Technology Group, Nokia, Pivotal that happen or we can counter it in based on open standards and the Commware, Quanta Cloud Tech- a similar way.” strong foundation built by 3GPP, nology, Radisys, Reliance Jio, Rob- Mavenir’s John Baker, SVP of which has enabled the most wide- in.io and U.S. Cellular. business development, discussing ly adopted global technology with Since forming, the Open RAN the Open RAN Policy Coalition’s over 8 billion mobile subscriptions. Policy Coalition has worked with launch, described the group as not 3GPP is also unique as anyone can policymakers to gather support for focused on “setting mandates to enter on FRAND terms. This has led “new and existing” vendors; estab- force people to do things. It’s pure- to a highly competitive and consol- lish a global pool of “trusted sup- ly a recommendation to ensure the idated RAN market. Similar con- pliers and service providers;” and industry takes the right precau- solidation can also be observed in foster U.S. “technological leader- tions, if you like, in going forward other parts of the industry, includ- ship both in 5G and future wireless in terms of building up the industry ing operations systems, chipsets network development.” and widening the supply chain.” and devices. Furthermore, Ericsson Parallel Wireless CEO Steve Papa Baker said interoperability is key is actively contributing to O-RAN has emerged as a strong proponent to building up a more robust glob- and ONAP to further spur innova- of governmental machinations al supply chain. “That’s what the tion, bringing forward global scale

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with a strong ecosystem. We be- interface workgroup intelligence. According to O-RAN lieve in open and fair competition. n Open fronthaul interfaces Alliance, “Future RANs will be To stay ahead in the 5G race, the workgroup built on a foundation of virtual- U.S. and other governments should n Open F1/W1/E1X2/Xn ized network elements, white-box maintain their market-based ap- workgroup hardware and standardized inter- proaches through technology-ag- n Cloudification and orchestra- faces that fully embrace O-RAN’s nostic policies. The focus of policy tion workgroup core principles of intelligence and makers needs to be on speeding up n White-box hardware workgroup openness. An ecosystem of inno- 5G deployment through spectrum n Stack reference design vative new products is already allocation and removing network workgroup emerging that will form the un- deployment barriers.” n Open X-haul transport derpinnings of the multi-vendor, workgroup interoperable, autonomous RAN, O-RAN Alliance The group’s work adheres to two envisioned by many in the past, The O-RAN Alliance formed in “core principles,” openness and but only now enabled by the global February 2018, a combination of the xRAN Forum and C-RAN Alliance, with founding operator members AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Tele- kom, NTT Docomo and Orange. That membership has since expanded to include 22 additional operators and more than 180 contributing companies representing virtually every bit of domain expertise in the telecoms world. The O-RAN Alliance is governed by a Technical Steering Committee that guides the work of nine working groups: n Use cases and overall architecture workgroup n Non-real time RIC and A1 interface workgroup

n Near-real time RIC and E2 Image courtesy of O-RAN Alliance

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industry-wide vision, commitment and leadership of O-RAN Alliance members and contributors.” To date, O-RAN Alliance has published more than 50 specifications ranging from DU-CU architecture and APIs and indoor picocell hardware architecture and requirements for sub-6 GHz to cloud architecture and deployment scenarios for open vRAN and AI/ML work- flow description and requirements. Infra Project Image courtesy of Telecom

Telecom Infra Project providers — makes it challenging architecture and innovation, The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) for operators to efficiently build Deutsche Telekom got its start in 2016 by Facebook and upgrade networks.” n Howard Watson, CEO of technol- and rather than the specification The TIP board of directors is made ogy, service and operations, BT work O-RAN Alliance engages in, up of: TIP is organized into three broad TIP focuses its efforts on building n TIP Chairman and President project groups – access, transport, and deploying infrastructure “to Yago Tenorio, head of network and core and services. Here we’ll fo- advance global connectivity.” The strategy and architecture, cus access project sub-groups: group is dedicated to expanding Vodafone n OpenRAN works to “define and the reach and quality of connec- n Aaron Bernstein, director of build 2G, 3G and 4G RAN solu- tivity – connecting the unconnect- connectivity ecosystem pro- tions based on general-purpose ed. According to TIP, “Half of the grams, Facebook hardware and software-defined world’s population is still not con- n Caroline Chan, vice president technology.” nected to the internet...This limits and general manager, 5G In- n OpenRAN 5G NR works to “de- access to the multitude of con- frastructure Division, Network fine a whitebox platform for a sumer and commercial benefits Platforms Group, Intel 5G NR access point that is easy provided by the internet, thereby n David Del Val Latorre, direc- to configure and deploy.” impacting GDP growth globally. tor of product innovation, To get an understanding of how However, a lack of flexibility in the Telefónica TIP is translating its collabora- current solutions — exacerbated n Adburazak Mudesir, senior tive work into field trials, con- by a limited choice in technology vice president of technology sider Vodafone; the operator has

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engaged in trial activity in Mo- investment we’re making today is zambique, Democratic Republic basically to make sure a number of of Congo, the U.K. and Ireland. OEMs can take advantage of com- Indosat Ooredoo and Smartfren mon, proven hardware SKUs...This are working on OpenRAN in Indo- is a way that we can accelerate the nesia. Related work is going on in availability of competitive SKUs Malaysia, the United Arab Emir- that can be shipped all over the ates and North America. world for both rural applications Another key TIP development is and dense urban.” the Evenstar project, announced in February this year. Vodafone, Deut- The pros sche Telekom, Mavenir, Parallel We know the lingo, we know the Wireless, MTI, AceAxis and Face- players, so let’s frame the Open RAN “By focusing now on converting book Connectivity collaborated on value proposition to better under- [RAN] to an open architecture, the Evenstar RRU for 4G and 5G stand the benefits of disaggregat- an open standard and a Open RAN deployments. ing radio hardware and software, potential to source white box Facebook Connectivity Vice trading single-purpose equipment hardware, I think this really President Dan Rabinovitsj dis- for general-purpose hardware and changes the game.” cussed the social media giant’s moving vital network functions Dan Rabinovitsj, Vice President, role in TIP and how the focus isn’t into the cloud. First and foremost, Facebook Connectivity finding a silver bullet for connect- network economics need to change; ing the 3.5 billion people that don’t for 5G to scale and provide the kind stuff, particularly RAN equipment. have access to reliable broadband, of meaningful business value tout- By focusing now on converting that but rather “investing in a building ed in press releases and sales briefs, to an open architecture, an open block strategy” and recognizing something has to give. Telecom op- standard and a potential to source the economic realities requiring erators are dropping billions of dol- white box hardware, I think this re- this paradigm shift. lars every year into building net- ally changes the game.” Building networks, from acquir- works yet are met with stagnating Tying that specifically to Open ing the spectrum to deploying, ARPUs, operational complexities RAN, he continued: “The reason densifying and upgrading, is in- that introduce more costs, and it’s why Open RAN has become so incredibly expensive and moving to a not sustainable. teresting is because, for the first cloud-based network and webscale Rabinovitsj described it as “an time, the telecom infra industry operation can address that. With economic imperative. [Operators and the mobile operators that are Evenstar, Rabinovitsj said, “The are] going to be buying a lot more driving the purchase of a lot of

10 Enabling the O-RAN of the Future Today Disaggregated 4G & 5G Mobile Access

Innovative and Disaggregated—Open RAN is Now a Reality! Open RAN delivers the promise of establishing a unique ecosystem that enables faster service innovation and reduces costs. Radisys is a proven thought leader in the Open RAN domain and an active contributor to global Open RAN initiatives such as the O-RAN Alliance, TIP, Open RAN Policy Coalition, OTIC and ONF.

Software Defined Unbundled Programmable Flexible Architecture that allows Unbundling the RAN is Facilitates deployments that With Open RAN, operators white box RAN hardware to enabling disaggregated are programmable and are able to construct a new, enable a truly interoperable control/data and open APIs. tailored to perform flexible architecture that and open network. effectively in real world eliminates vendor lock-in network conditions. and reduces total cost of ownership.

Ready to learn more? Connect with us at [email protected]. FEATURE REPORT

this equipment, they realize they your goal is coverage, you can eco- proprietary. It was all very limited need to get away from their mono- nomically expand by using exist- in choice. The biggest advantage it lithic supply chain.” Following the ing central offices or regional data gives operators is the freedom to predominant thinking means op- centers to support CUs that can choose the individually disaggre- erators “effectively...end up with be connected to DUs and RRUs in gated components from different very little control over the outcome areas that need better cellular cov- vendors. The best in class that suits themselves. They’re very depen- erage. If the angle is an enterprise their use cases while knowing full dent on their suppliers to deliver network, a CU could be hosted at an well that the open interfaces mean the technology, the experience and existing core site and a DU turned that they should all work when also the pace of innovation. This up in an on-prem data center; add plugged and played together.” has really been one of the founding some radios and you’ve got a cam- Speaking in a keynote address principles of TIP – let’s disaggregate pus network. This ability to cus- during IFA, Qualcomm President the hardware and software, let’s re- tomize parallels the broad premise Cristiano Amon discussed the invigorate the tech stack inside of of 5G as a flexible network that can company’s role in Open RAN–he mobile operators because they lost be what the user needs it to be. said modern networks are becom- the engineering muscle that they As Viavi Solutions’ Marketing ing more “virtual, modular and used to have. By doing that, this cre- Manager Owen O’Donnell put it, interoperable. Cellular infrastruc- ates a more diverse supply chain, it “[Operators] couldn’t plug and play ture is evolving to become more gives operators more freedom to bits of [infrastructure] between open, innovative and competitive.” choose how and when they’re going different manufacturers. It was all The roadmap for 5G encompasses to deploy certain kinds of technology and features, etc...and also gives them the opportunity to reshape the operation of their network and the maintenance and support and deployment of that.” As mentioned above, another big driver of Open RAN is option- ality – letting operators mix and match equipment and vendors and products which, in turn, allows for more flexibility in how networks are built and what those networks can support in terms of use cases. If Image courtesy of Qualcomm

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a huge variety of use cases; in this We’re one of the few companies RAN – what are the areas where, context, flexibility will be key. that have the assets that we can first of all, we can achieve the Qualcomm’s 5G RAN platform, build the engine of the new Open best results in a shorter period of initially launched in 2018, is being RAN base station and we’re very time and what are the areas that used by numerous infrastructure excited about that opportunity.” add a lot of complexity and need a providers, including Airspan, Al- Deutsche Telekom earlier this bit more work before they become tiostar, Baicells, Corning, Radisys, year announced it is working with a reality?” Rakuten, Samsung, Sercomm and VMware and Intel on an “open and He said Nokia is taking a prag- now, Japanese powerhouses Fujitsu intelligent virtual RAN…plat- matic approach meant to “get the and NEC. form, based on O-RAN standards.” benefits of openness with more In response to a question from DT Board Member Claudia Nemat choices for our customers, the RCR Wireless News, Amon dis- also appeared during Amon’s innovation that comes with the cussed Open RAN as a potential keynote. She linked Open RAN to functionality like RIC, but without vector of disruption to traditional “flexibility, scalability and accel- losing too much on performance or network equipment providers. “I erated innovation…Open RAN for without delaying the adoption of believe that vRAN and Open RAN me primarily means a modular these advanced features that are creates a huge opportunity for some hardware and software setup uti- actually being required by our cus- of the network equipment provid- lizing all the benefits coming from tomers right now.” ers that will lead the transition in virtualization and cloud together In June, Nokia announced com- what Infrastructure 2.0 is.” He said with open interfaces.” mercial availability later this year incumbents could “take a leading While the Open RAN conversa- of its AirScale Cloud RAN solution role in the software that will run tion is often focused on smaller, with general availability follow- in those networks and will provide newer equipment suppliers, it’s im- ing in 2021. This builds on what feature parity between the existing portant to note that major incum- Nokia calls a vRAN 1.0 configura- systems and the new systems.” bent vendors like Ericsson, Nokia tion which has been in commercial He added, “It could be an interest- and Samsung are all tracking the use in the U.S. since 2019. The next ing opportunity for some of the ex- opportunity and adapting their step, vRAN 2.0, expands on that to isting players to, over time, evolve product portfolios. include a DU running on gener- into a very powerful software Nokia’s Tavares, head of global al-purpose x86 server hardware as provider in addition to what they mobile networks marketing, said well as a fronthaul gateway. “The do today in providing an integrat- there’s a lot of merit to Open RAN, result is a fully cloudified and dis- ed solution.” RAN disaggregation, “But there is a lot of hype around aggregated 5G base station that Amon said, “creates a significant it as well. We are looking at a more provides scalability, low latency, opportunity, I think, for Qualcomm. facts-based approach to Open high performance and capacity, as

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well as several network architec- the issue based on his reckoning quarter. The vCU component was ture options, to meet ever-increas- that Europe is behind other mar- commercialized in April last year ing market demands,” according to kets in LTE. “That has led to a loss of and is in commercial use in Korea, Nokia. vRAN 3.0 will be marked by a lot of economic value in Europe as Japan and the United States. The the addition of GPU-based hard- a continent,” he said during a July vendor is planning to trial the vDU ware acceleration capabilities. earnings call. in North America later this year. Ericsson, which this passed 100 “We are going to be a participant,” While a virtual RAN can be made commercial 5G contracts, is an ac- he said. “We’re already active. But open with the integration of open tive, contributing member of the for the high performance applica- radio interfaces, a virtual RAN can O-RAN Alliance, but is significant- tions, today we do not see O-RAN also be a proprietary kit. Samsung’s ly more bullish on its integrated, as a way to speed up the rollout. It’s latest ticks both boxes. Alok Shah, virtualized RAN products more so rather a way to slow down right vice president of networks strate- than going full-on with Open RAN. now. When O-RAN is ready, we’re gy, told RCR Wireless News, “Sam- Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm made going to be there. If we are going to sung is a leader in Open RAN, and clear the company isn’t going to repeat that mistake [with 5G] in Eu- as an active contributor to stan- eschew Open RAN during a July rope, I think the European economy dards groups like 3GPP and O-RAN earnings call but contextualized has a problem. Europe, as a conti- Alliance, we have achieved open nent, needs to not be behind in 5G… fronthaul interoperability with The big value of 5G is not the net- multiple vendors…and for multiple work, the network infrastructure. operator networks. Our fully virtu- It’s not the operators. It’s actually alized RAN solution supports our the applications that run on top of growing portfolio of O-RAN-com- the network.” pliant radio solutions.” Samsung in July announced a vir- Samsung is growing its share of tualized 5G RAN solution compris- global networks business with Tier ing virtualized CUs and DUs and up- 1 deals in the U.S., Canada, Korea, dated radios. And in keeping with Japan and New Zealand. In the the Open RAN trend, Samsung said latest blockbuster infra deal, Sam- its new vRAN solution will work sung snagged a five-year, $6.6 bil-

“When O-RAN is ready, we’re with radio interfaces developed lion contract with Verizon. While going to be there.” within the O-RAN Alliance. The little has been released about the Börje Ekholm, President and CEO, company said the 5G vRAN solu- details of the contract, including Ericsson tion, which runs on generic x-86 the specific equipment being pro- hardware, will be available this vided to Verizon, Samsung said in a

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statement that the pair will “con- integration costs as someone has tinue to push the boundaries of to do the work, and be paid for it, 5G innovation,” confirming that at of integrating multi-vendor kit. least a portion of the deal is direct- There are also questions around the ly related to 5G. ability to scale Open RAN in a way Back to this idea of Open RAN as that retains performance parity as- an economic imperative, Parallel sociated with an integrated infra- Wireless’ CEO Papa touched on the structure stack. And another issue notion of openness as it relates to we’ll explore further on this paper RAN and also how geopolitics and is around security. history should inform lawmakers’ Ericsson’s Paul Challoner, vice current postures toward fostering a president of network product solu- U.S. telecom ecosystem. He said the tions, acknowledged there’s “poten- “I think the industry has to Open RAN business model matches tially [a] reduction in capex through work through those integration the generational shift in cellular. commoditization of some of the challenges. Ultimately it can be “The economics of a coverage tech- products, [but] how many of the done...But that’s going to take nology and architecture don’t scale integration costs are one time and some time to work through.” well as a capacity architecture. The how many are recurring through- Paul Challoner, Vice President entire business models of the incum- out hardware/software lifecycle of Network Product Solutions, bent vendors don’t work and don’t management?” Ericsson map to what the people deploying Challoner continued: “I think the the equipment require given the industry has to work through those can then provide millions of radi- economic realities.” integration challenges. Ultimately os around the world every year?” it can be done. But the specifica- All in all, he said of Open RAN, The cons tions need more maturity and there “I think it’s a journey. We need to While the benefits of Open RAN needs to be constructs, open lab take the Open RAN architectures (advantageous network econom- structures, to do that integration. and evolve those so they can meet ics and deployment flexibility But that’s going to take some time the demanding requirements of chief among them), there are to work through.” today’s networks.” also well-articulated issues asso- He also raised the question of To address the perceived chal- ciated with the technology. One scalability, particularly as it re- lenges of integration, Viavi’s question is whether operators are lates to supplying compatible ra- O’Donnell points to test and trading reduced capex related to dio. “Who is it that makes the radi- validation work that can be RAN infrastructure for increased os? And which Open RAN vendors done in laboratories settings or

15 FEATURE REPORT Image courtesy of Viavi Solutions Image courtesy of Viavi

environments like the Open Test the finger pointing will be worked norm of just having two or three and Integration Center, a consor- out in the lab...before it’s deployed. vendors. The new dimension or tium focused on letting operators If you’re doing a network slicing the new reality of having multi- and vendors test out Open RAN test and the latency is not matching ple vendors is sometimes scary for solutions prior to deployment. the requirements, then it’s in the lab the operators. One reason is the This gets to the heart of the ques- that you’ll be able to monitor the integration costs and second is the tion around, if an Open RAN site latency KPI from the RU to the DU time taken to integrate. That is has an issue, which of the multiple and from the DU to the CU.” not a completely solved puzzle yet. vendors does an operator look to? “If More on balancing capex savings There are companies looking at somehow the overall KPI is failing, with more complex integration, this space, Radisys being one such how do you point to the individu- Radisys Vice President of Engi- system integrator.” al component that’s causing the neering Ganesh Shenbagaraman So what do two major U.S. opera- problem?” he mused. “That’s going said, “This is a question that is of- tors think? In September, the U.S. to be an issue. But, from our point ten seen from an operator point of Federal Communications Commis- of view, it’s testing. The testing and view. There has been a tradition or sion brought together a variety of

FEATURE REPORT

not unique to Open RAN. “O-RAN is still developing specifications at this time and some are further along,” Bigler said. “Having specs alone does not guarantee interoperability or performance. We really see that integration is the biggest challenge ahead. You really don’t find the issues or gaps with the specs until you actually try to integrate two vendors’ equipment.” In terms of how Open RAN fits into AT&T deployment plans, “O-RAN is still developing “The testing and the finger Bigler said she foresees a “gradual specifications at this time pointing will be worked out in introduction of Open RAN into our and some are further along. the lab...before it’s deployed.” existing network.” Having specs alone does not Owen O’Donnell, Marketing Lori Fountain, director of net- guarantee interoperability or Manager, Viavi Solutions work infrastructure planning with performance.” Verizon, made clear that Verizon Laurie Bigler, Assistant Vice Open RAN stakeholders for its Fo- is “a player in O-RAN as well as an President, Member Tech Staff, rum on 5G Open Radio Access Net- early adopter,” but said incorpora- Access Analytics and Systems, works. During the event, AT&T’s tion of the emerging technology is AT&T Laurie Bigler, assistant vice presi- “a journey. We’re kind of at the first dent and tech staff member for ac- step of that journey, which is the and in a timeframe that success- cess analytics and systems, point- ability to mix and match baseband fully allows the network to mature ed to trials of the Radio Intelligent software with an open [radio unit] gracefully but, at the same time, Controller (RIC) the operator has and we’re excited.” protecting our customers.” conducted on its millimeter wave She continued: “The challenge we Open RAN and security 5G network in New York as a proof see at Verizon is scale and maturity. One reason Open RAN is receiving point of the company’s interest, We have a mature network here at so much attention at the moment but also noted challenges around Verizon and it’s not a greenfield net- relates to Chinese infrastructure “ensuring the reliability, integrity work. We support O-RAN entirely powerhouse Huawei. In the larg- and performance for our custom- and know it is the future. We will be er and ongoing geopolitical battle ers,” which she acknowledged is adopting this critical architecture between China and the U.S., the

18 FEATURE REPORT

telecom sector has emerged as a key Huawei equipment. The FCC re- near-real time RIC and the front. U.S. policymakers have man- cently collected information from xApps it supports; dated the removal of Huawei gear U.S.-based “eligible telecommuni- n “Decoupling of hardware from domestic networks and are cations carriers” that use Huawei increases threat to trust chain;” working hard to not only preclude or ZTE “equipment and services.” n And “adherence to open source Huawei from selling gear into the There are more than 50 companies best practices,” which the country, but also broadly working on that list, including CenturyLink, author notes is “not exclusive to curtail Huawei’s reach by cut- Hiawatha Communications, Okla- to O-RAN.” ting off access to components pro- homa Western Telephone Company, Boswell continued in a blog post duced in the U.S. This process is also Verizon and Windstream. that accompanied the paper: “Sever- playing out in other geographies Pompeo said he’s “very pleased” al service providers intend to lever- with the U.K. recently asking its that approximately 30 countries age virtual RAN in an Open RAN operators to remove Huawei equip- have banned Huawei “and chosen architecture to build secure, open, ment from their networks, which clean vendors.” He called those na- interoperable, disaggregated, vir- was preceded by New Zealand, Ja- tions “clean countries” with “clean tual networks based upon industry pan and other countries cutting the telcos...The clean network maximiz- standards. As the industry evolves vendor out of 5G builds. es connectivity without risk from towards RAN virtualization, with U.S. Secretary of State Mike untrusted vendors and stops the 3GPP or O-RAN, it is important that Pompeo, kicking off the Federal CCP censorship of Americans.” a risk-based approach is taken to Communication Commission’s Sep- Ericsson recently published a pa- adequately address security risk. Se- tember Forum on 5G Open Radio per titled, “Security considerations cure Open RAN systems may require Access Networks, didn’t mince of Open RAN,” that, at a high-lev- additional security measures not yet words in addressing what he called el, framed the issue of security in fully addressed, a trusted stack for the “China challenge...The Chinese Open RAN versus an integrated software and hardware, and interop- Communist Party is leveraging RAN as having “the potential to ex- erability between vendors with a it’s technological prowess to erode pand the threat and attack surface common understanding and imple- freedom and democracy here at of the network in numerous ways,” mentation of security requirements.” home and indeed all around the according to Head of Security, Net- Ericsson made its position abun- world,” Pompeo said. work Product Solutions, Jason S. dantly clear but that position re- In his address, the Secretary of Boswell. Among those ways are: ceived some quick pushback from State didn’t once use the phrase n Expanded threat surface based leaders of two major Open RAN “Open RAN,” but he did heavily use on new interfaces like open providers. In a webinar focused the term “clean” to describe coun- fronthaul, A1 and E2; on a newly articulated partner- tries and companies that don’t use n Potential to exploit the ship between Rakuten Mobile and

19 FEATURE REPORT

Image courtesy of Ericsson “It’s a lot easier to find cockroaches when the lights Telefónica (which we’ll cover later control about what comes in and are on [rather] than fumbling in this report), Rakuten Mobile CTO what goes out.” around in the dark.” Tareq Amin and Telefónica Global Blanco said an open network lets Stephen Bye, Executive Vice CTIO Enrique Blanco raised coun- the operator “see what is happen- President and Chief Commercial terpoints on the security issue. ing...It isn’t a black box. We prefer Officer, DISH Amin said he has “huge respect” to be open. Open RAN is not an ad- for the Swedish incumbent but ditional concern...If there is a black when the lights are on [rather] said, when considering “locked box, I cannot guarantee security.” than fumbling around in the dark and proprietary gear,” security is In the U.S., DISH is building an trying to find something.” rooted in the vendor telling you open, greenfield standalone 5G net- In a paper published in June by it’s secure. “As an operator, you work using some of the same ven- the Open RAN Policy Coalition, the should have 100% visibility. You dors Rakuten Mobile has worked group describes “common miscon- should know, end to end, what with. Speaking at the FCC session, ceptions about...Open RAN is that is happening in the network. Se- DISH Chief Commercial Officer open interfaces introduce security curing the perimeter and getting Stephen Bye said, “We’ve taken a risk. In fact, these same open inter- visibility is 80% of the headache...I sort of zero-trust model. The real faces, defined in technical specifi- actually have a very contradicto- focus on a clean network is vital.” cations, provide a foundation and ry opinion, that it is an extreme- On the security architecture of architecture for improving secu- ly secure system because at least an open network, Bye said, “It’s a rity. Although operators procure I have complete visibility and lot easier to find the cockroaches and integrate open RAN network

20 FEATURE REPORT

functions in new ways, operators a mixed bag. On the one hand, Ra- this is the biggest tender in the this bring the same expertise, diligence kuten Mobile is successfully run- industry in the world. It’s a really and requirements for security and ning at scale in an incredibly dense big opportunity for Open RAN to resilience to these environments.” urban environment, on the other scale. We are ready to swap out Also in June, the Policy Coalition we see Vodafone U.K. focused in on sites if we have to. Our ambition provided comments to NTIA as it Open RAN as a rural coverage play. is to have modern, up to date, low- considers how Open RAN fits into So how do we square this apparent er-cost kit in every site.” the National Strategy to Secure divergent thinking? In the U.S., Open RAN is being 5G. The theme was that essentially “We don’t see open RAN as a niche considered as a cost-effective way that standards and interoperability play only for rural deployments,” for rural carriers to replace Hua- create trust, and that virtualized Facebook Connectivity’s Rabino- wei infrastructure. Steven K. Berry, and network function segmenta- vitsj said. “It just so happens it’s one president and CEO of the Compet- tion enhances security. of the best places to go prove out itive Carriers Association, told us According to the Open RAN Pol- that this technology is meeting the more than a dozen of the group’s icy Coalition filing, “From a secu- full requirements of an operator. If members use Huawei gear and are rity perspective, software-based you’re going to test a new suppli- grappling with the rip and replace networking and virtualization er...you’re probably going to take a process. As to the role of Open RAN enables additional security tech- more conservative approach when in that process, “Hopefully that’s a niques such as sandboxing, mi- you get started. These rural areas cost-saving opportunity for many cro-segmentation, containeriza- have turned out to be a really nice of the small carriers. We call it the tion, and network slicing. There proving ground.” rip and replace but...we don’t want are also important trust and secu- Indeed, Vodafone began testing any customers, consumers, in rural rity capabilities of virtualization Open RAN, in partnership with America to go without service, so enabled by modern hardware and TIP, in Mozambique and Demo- it’s really replace then rip. It’s going processors. The end result is that cratic Republic of Congo. It has to be complicated. We’re working through advancements in hard- since brought Open RAN to Tur- hard to identify where we begin.” ware and virtualization, operators key, South Africa and U.K., and “Every network is different,” have more tools to ensure the secu- late last year said it would include Berry said “There’s not a one size rity and resilience of the network.” Open RAN suppliers in a tender fits all. People are feeling that out covering 100,000 sites and cellular right now. It’s brand new. System Open RAN for rural networks generations from 2G to 5G. Voda- integrators are sort of key to how When you look at current Open fone’s Tenorio, also head of the TIP you get all the different slices of RAN deployment patterns and fu- board, said in November at the TIP virtualized components together. ture expectations, it’s decidedly Summit in Amsterdam, “Right now There’s a lot of positives there and

21 FEATURE REPORT

we hope O-RAN, in fact, shows bet- Wireless CEO Steve Papa pointed network comprises 6,015 macro sites ter promises on solutions for legacy out that the rural operators target- and supports more than 1 million networks going forward.” ed as potential Open RAN buyers subscribers that use around half a Shenbagaraman of Radisys need to ensure the durability of gigabit of mobile data per day with concurred with Rabinovitsj’s as- near-term investments. And, that, 50% of that traffic being video and sessment. “What many operators he said equates to investments not streaming. The company has said are doing is taking a gradual ap- just in radios but also into “semi- this approach has yielded a 40% re- proach. The thought process, or conductor innovation.” duction in capex and 30% reduction the current thinking seems to be, From Papa of Parallel Wireless’ try it out first in a rural, less-dense email: “The biggest challenge for environment. Even if the solution operators is ‘future proofing’ their has some risk of failure...that’s tol- investments. They need to know erable to try it out.” that if they deploy O-RAN, that be- Recall Challoner’s concern yond just solving the rural problem, around the scalability of Open they can also ultimately solve the RAN – ”which Open RAN vendors high-end 5G massive MIMO prob- can then provide millions of radios lem. In order for operators to make around the world every year?” big O-RAN investments they need Altiostar and Mavenir In June confidence that Open RAN can announced they will work together solve their entire problem. with equipment OEMs to develop Ericsson is also working to cap- radio units compatible with the ture the coming spend on rural rip “I believe Rakuten is the only frequency bands used by Tier 1 U.S. and replace, somewhere in the $2 company today in the world operators as well as smaller carriers billion range. According to Chal- that has a practical experience, with rural and regional operations. loner, “The Open RAN for rural is a [a] battle-proven organization Altiostar CEO Ashraf Dahod said potential...starting point. The per- that understands what is this the goal of the partnership is to “en- formance is less demanding than concept of Open RAN, beyond sure operators in the U.S. have a tru- the urban environment. So rural is saying we’re going to create an ly open and end-to-end infrastruc- an immediate opportunity.” Open RAN coalition.” ture that will be cost effective and Tareq Amin, Chief Technology Officer of Rakuten Mobile, and allow them to grow their business.” Operator focus: Rakuten Mobile Group Executive Vice President In a comment sent to media and Rakuten Mobile launched a and Chief Architecture Officer, analysts following the Altiostar/ fully-virtualized, cloud-based LTE Rakuten Mavenir announcement, Parallel network on April 8. Today the

22 FEATURE REPORT

in opex. As it moves on to providing into the Rakuten Communications The business model and ROI for 5G 5G services in the near future. Platform which the company is is yet to be realized. I believe Ra- Tareq Amin, Rakuten Mobile pitching to global operators, enter- kuten is the only company today CTO and Group EVP and CAO for prises and governments. in the world that has a practical Rakuten, has emerged as the most “When we meet with the govern- experience, [a] battle-proven orga- visible evangelist of Open RAN and ments, we tell them that truthfully, nization that understands what is the possibilities associated with a deploying telecom infrastructure this concept of Open RAN, beyond virtualized, cloud-native network. is expensive and we think we need saying we’re going to create an In addition to building its green- to reinvent that with our partners Open RAN coalition.” field network, the company has and ecosystem innovators, so of Beyond just opening the RAN, also packaged its network architec- course governments have a huge Amin is focused on pervasive open- ture, including telco applications interest,” he said in a session with ness and building a network as a and software from multiple ven- journalists. “I think it’s not just platform for collaborative innova- dors, OSS and BSS systems handling about the security aspect of it, but tion. He has noted that beyond just customer billing and activation it’s about making 5G far more af- disaggregating RAN, Rakuten has systems, edge computing and virtu- fordable than what it is today. 5G disaggregated the procurement pro- al network management functions, infrastructure today is not cheap. cess, working directly with vendors Image courtesy of Rakuten Mobile

23 FEATURE REPORT

to build the equipment needed to help achieve the company’s goals. But, “Rakuten has no interest to be another vendor in this space. We want to co-innovate, we want to partner and deliver on the concept of openness, partnering together on leveraging open source technologies and participating in co-innovation on key industry forums, and also creating a global network of innovation labs to partner together with global mobile operators, industry and government.” Image courtesy of Vodafone U.K. U.K. Image courtesy of Vodafone Operator focus: Vodafone UK Vodafone has made clear it ex- In a statement, Vodafone U.K. 95% of the U.K. pects Open RAN technologies to identified U.S.-based Mavenir as Matt Warman, Digital Infrastruc- play a big role across its multi-na- its Open RAN vendor. Mavenir has ture Minister, said in a statement: tional network footprint. In the an end-to-end portfolio of telecom “OpenRAN gives mobile companies U.K. market, the operator in August software solutions and has both the flexibility to use multiple sup- brought live a 4G Open RAN cell virtual and open radio access net- pliers in their 4G and 5G networks. site at the Royal Welsh Showground work products. The deployment This is vital to help the market in Polys, Wales. uses Dell and Kontron servers for grow, build resilience and give Vodafone U.K. CTO Scott Petty the CU and DU, respectively. people fast, reliable and secure called the move an “important To Petty’s comment about closing internet connections wherever milestone” and said Open RAN can the digital divide, Vodafone U.K. is they live and work...This technol- “make us less dependent on cur- also working with its competitors ogy can make a real difference in rent larger technology suppliers, on the Shared Rural Network ini- improving connectivity in rural and find ways to reduce the cost tiative where the country’s oper- communities and I look forward of rolling out mobile coverage. ators share cell sites to more eco- to continuing to work closely with Open RAN can also help close the nomically expand coverage. This Vodafone and other operators on digital divide between urban and government-backed program is our plans to diversify the telecoms rural Britain.” working to provide 4G coverage to supply chain.”

24 Maximizing your Open RAN Investment Whether your challenges lie in interoperability with legacy technologies, multi-vendor components, or optimizing the performance of your network as a whole, VIAVI delivers a one stop shop, for Open RAN testing.

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With years of experience working alongside all major NEMs and small cell manufacturers VIAVI has built a reputation as a trusted supplier of leading-edge cellular test equipment. Our flexible approach to Validation, Verification and Visibility allows us to support our customers with the various options and configurations that are required to deploy a successful Open Radio Access Network.

To find out more about how VIAVI can help you maximize your Open RAN investment visit: viavisolutions.com/oran

Command the 5G network. FEATURE REPORT

Similar to the situation in the create a programmable network “is U.S., the U.K. government in July a must because we need to monitor announced that Huawei gear must huge growth in the data capabil- be completely removed from the ities for our customers. This net- country’s 5G networks by the end work needs to be open and we need of 2027, following new recommen- to get all these capabilities.” dations by the National Cyber Jump forward to March 2020: Security Center (NCSC) on the im- Telefónica articulated plans to pact of U.S. sanctions against the test Open RAN in Brazil, Germany, telecommunications vendor. The Spain and the United Kingdom. At government also confirmed that the time, the operator assembled a it will also implement a total ban group of specialists to advance it’s on the purchase of new Huawei kit ambitions. The following vendors “The traditional radio vendor, for 5G, starting in 2021. The deci- were announced at the time: it is not enough.” sion was made in a meeting of the n Altiostar, which Telefónica has Enrique Blanco, Global Chief National Security Council (NSC) also invested in, to provide its Technology and Information chaired by the Prime Minister Bo- vRAN software; Officer, Telefónica ris Johnson, in response to recent n Intel to provide its Xeon U.S. sanctions. processors to power servers Xilinx’s Mike Wissolik, director of supporting baseband radio product marketing for the Wired Operator focus: Telefónica functions; and Wireless Group, said the card Telefónica, which also operates n Supermicro, a provider of a was developed in response to op- the brands Movistar, O2 and Vivo, multiple telco solutions, includ- erator demand. According to the provides connectivity services to ing those geared toward edge company, the T1 Telco Accelerator more than 340 million customers computing and Open RAN DUs; Card reduces the numbers of CPU in 14 countries, has for some time n And Xilinx for its Zynq UltraS- cores needs to operate a DU and de- been crystal clear about it’s Open cale+ RF SoCs for 4G and 5G livers a 45x encoding throughput as RAN plans. Speaking almost one radios. compared to a server running the year ago at Huawei’s Global Mobile As an aside, Xilinx in September same functions without the accel- Broadband Forum in Zurich, Swit- announced its shipping a T1 Telco eration capabilities. Wissolik said zerland, Global CTIO Enrique Blan- Accelerator Card designed for 5G that at the end of 2019 and into the co described the shift to Open RAN Open RAN with a focus on simpli- beginning of 2020, “Everyone came as “extraordinarily ambitious.” De- fying fronthaul termination at the to us asking, ‘What’re you doing in coupling hardware and software to DU and providing Layer 1 offload. O-RAN?’ As we were developing

26 FEATURE REPORT

this in the early stages, it really in the architecture. We are working and revolutionize the current 5G hammered home for us that there’s together on how we can be much industry in the medium and long really demand behind this.” more close on the procurement.” term...Telefónica and Rakuten Mo- And, in the latest, Blanco and Ra- Addressing the ongoing question bile have signed this MoU to work kuten Mobile’s Amin in September of whether Open RAN can operate towards evaluating and demon- announced a memorandum of un- at scale, Blanco said, “This is not a strating the capability and feasibil- derstanding that will see the two wish. This is not a hope. Rakuten ity of Open RAN architectures and companies collaborate on Open demonstrated that it is a fact.” make them a reality.” RAN, 5G core and other autono- The MoU with Rakuten Mobile mous network functionality. In a considers joint lab testing and trial Operator focus: Inland Cellular webinar, Blanco laid out a three- activity, partnership on acceler- Inland Cellular provides wireless phase timeline for driving Open ating time to market, ecosystem services to more than 35,000 sub- RAN tech into 50% Telefónica’s net- development, global roaming and scribers in north, central Idaho and work in the 2022-2025 timeframe. joint hardware and software pro- southeastern Washington. The car- Phase 0 is underway and includes curement encompassing CUs, DU, rier worked with Parallel Wireless pilot projects. Phase 1 is marked by RRUs and other equipment. on its Open RAN deployment. initial deployments between 2021 Blanco said in a statement: According to an interview with and 2022. And Phase 2 is massive “Telefónica strongly believes that The Washington Post, Inland deployment beginning in 2022. networks are evolving towards end- worked with Ericsson on its 3G net- “The traditional radio vendor, it to-end virtualization through an work and with Nokia on its LTE net- is not enough,” Blanco said, adding open architecture, and Open RAN is work. Company EVP Chip Damato that Open RAN is a “necessity. We are a key piece of the whole picture...It said its work with the two incum- trying to build a common approach will change the supplier ecosystem bent European vendors always ran into cost problems. “Anything you wanted to do was a huge financial hit on us,” he said in the piece by Jeanne Whalen. “Based on what we were doing, we couldn’t survive. … So we went out looking for alternatives.” Damato reckoned Open RAN cut per site cost by around 40% or approximately $20,000.

Image courtesy of Telefónica On the political side, a number of small U.S. operators that previously

27 FEATURE REPORT

used Huawei kit have been directed A case study published by Intel RAN is meant to support additional to rip and replace that equipment sketches out the set up Inland has use cases such as smart homes, con- in exchange for infrastructure put together with Parallel Wire- nected farms, smart enterprise and from “trusted” vendors. Open RAN less. According to the case study, private networks, according to the vendors are also seeking U.S. invest- Parallel’s Open RAN controller Intel case study. ment in the technology to better software is running on a Dell EMC compete against Huawei around server stack, which uses Intel’s Operator focus: DISH the world. Xeon D-2100 processors. Parallel’s The background on how DISH As Damato told The Washington software-defined remote radio arrived at where it is today — build- Post, “We’re not going to be in the head supports Inland’s 600 MHz ing a nationwide, facilities-based, mix when it comes to any kind of spectrum and, along with the vir- greenfield 5G network — is com- regulatory issue or anything that tualized baseband, can be upgraded plex and voluminous, so we’ll fo- happens at the government level. from 4G to 5G. cus on how it’s approaching Open We’ve got to go out and be as re- In addition to talk, text and mobile RAN and, as an extension of that, a sourceful as we can.” data, Inland’s investment in Open cloud-native architecture. Image courtesy of Parallel Wireless

28 FEATURE REPORT

To the greenfield point, DISH’s innovative, software-defined net- VMware’s Telco Cloud platform to Bye said during the FCC’s recent fo- work with the flexibility, intelli- run as an underlying cloud plat- rum: “We don’t have any legacy. We gence and scalability to deliver form and infrastructure layer. By don’t have 3G, we don’t have 4G, in applications that will redefine the using the platform as an abstrac- fact we don’t even have sort of an- U.S. wireless industry.” tion layer that runs across multi- tiquated OSS and BSS systems that Then, in July, DISH said it’s work- ple network domains, DISH said we’re having to retrofit into this ar- ing with Altiostar to bring O-RAN it can tap into hyperscale public chitecture. I think a lot of things we compliant solutions, as well as ar- cloud capacity while maintaining see unfolding...around cloud-native tificial intelligence and machine its core control points. networking are really vital to un- learning for end-to-end automa- “VMware software will serve locking the potential that O-RAN tion, zero-touch commissioning and as a powerful foundation for our provides. To us, O-RAN is an import- faster network recovery. Specifical- cloud-native, software-defined 5G ant step but one step.” ly, DISH will use Altiostar software network,” Rouanne said. “By bring- In April, DISH began publicly and work with Japan’s Fujitsu on ing together innovations such as the discussing its vendors. First up, compatible radios. distributed cloud, edge computing Mavenir. Chief Network Officer In August, and following mul- and network slicing, this software Marc Rouanne said, “Mavenir will tiple tests and onboarding pro- will help us provide our customers help us lay the foundation for an cedures, DISH officially selected with customizable, secure solutions that will be more cost-effective than legacy, vertically-integrated, hardware-reliant alternatives.” Then, in September, following “months of joint testing,” Nokia and DISH entered into an agreement in which Nokia’s cloud-native, standalone 5G core software products will provide support in a number of areas including data management, device management and integration services. Bhaskar Gorti, president of Nokia Software and Nokia chief digital officer said that Nokia’s product will deliver near-

Image courtesy of DISH zero-touch automation capabilities,

29 FEATURE REPORT

high-level operational efficiencies, at the FCC event, opted for the op- the development and deployment scale and performance. Further, erator as integrator route. “Every of mobile networks for global cus- also as part of the deal, Nokia will network has multiple vendors,” he tomers of RCP. The Indian compa- deliver additional cloud-native said. “There’s no network that is ny will also provide managed IT, products that will provide 4G, 5G one vendor; it’s always a combina- security and network services to standalone and Voice over Wi-Fi action of many different vendors and Rakuten Mobile, and there are also cess to core network functions. many, many different partners. In- plans to designate Tech Mahindra “We’re combining all of these ca- tegration is just part of the job we as an official reseller of RCP. pabilities to do something very do. That’s part of what we do as a “This first of its kind collabora- unique at DISH,” Bye said during network provider. When we look at tion with Rakuten Mobile not only the FCC forum. “I think with this O-RAN, there’s really nothing that strengthens our existing partner- platform it’s going to unlock a lot of makes that any more challenging ship with them, but will also en- innovation going forward.” than the work that we undertake able us to drive innovation in the every day. The architecture with telecom space, provide enhanced Aggregating disaggregation O-RAN and an open platform actu- customer experience and lead the Earlier in this report, we framed ally gives us much better transpar- transformation in mobile network the concerns around the potential ency and visibility. It really allows technology from the forefront,” for Open RAN to lower capex but in us to drill in and understand where said Chander Prakash Gurnani, exchange for increased costs relat- those pain points are. I see it as a managing director and CEO of Tech ed to system integration. So how are tremendous opportunity to inte- Mahindra. Amin called this “the the major players in the space ad- grate more effectively than we’ve next step on our journey...We are dressing this perceived challenge? done in the past.” proud to be partnering with Tech Two primary schools of thought If we look to Rakuten Mobile, this Mahindra to offer cloud native are emerging: operator as integra- was the route followed in construc- networks to customers around the tor, or a third party that serves as tion of their network. But as it re- world through the Rakuten Com- a master integrator to essentially lates to the Rakuten Communica- munications Platform.” reaggregate disaggregation. With tions Platform, the Japanese firm As part of the deal, Tech Mahin- an integrated RAN provided by, say, recently struck a deal with Tech dra’s wholly-owned subsidiary Nokia, if something goes wrong the Mahindra to address the recurring Tech Mahindra Americas has sold operator calls Nokia. With a disag- concern around who handles in- its stake in U.S.-based telecom soft- gregated RAN, if an operator has tegration in an open network. Un- ware firm Altiostar Networks for multiple RAN vendors and some- der the agreement, Tech Mahindra $45 million to Rakuten’s U.S. sub- thing goes wrong, who do they call? will provide its technologies and sidiary. In 2018, Tech Mahindra had DISH’s Bye, during his comments software capabilities to support acquired a 17.5% stake in Altiostar

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alignment is necessary to take advantage of a flexible network in terms of rapidly developing and deploying new services and features. “What we are implementing not with just Rakuten but also with DISH is definitely CI/CD and DevOps,” Maupile said in an interview. “It’s something very similar to what has already been implement- ed by the hyperscalers. In this context, to make it happen you have to “We believe if the operators have proper coordination between “Doing one [Open RAN want to take full advantage of the various partners.” deployment] is hard but the this cloud-native model, they He continued: “We believe if the second one, the third and fourth need to, at some point, have operators want to take full advan- should not be as difficult.” their own capabilities.” tage of this cloud-native model, Caroline Chan, Vice President Thierry Maupilé, Executive Vice they need to, at some point, have and General Manager, 5G President of Strategy and Product their own capabilities. Any opera- Infrastructure Division, Network Management, Altiostar tor should define differently what Platforms Group, Intel they need to keep control over. Now Networks for $15 million. Altiostar we are giving more control because programmable, open interfaces us- provides 4G and 5G virtualized it’s an open architecture. They have ing Intel’s FlexRAN software refer- RAN software solutions. more visibility and more control. ence architecture and VMware’s RIC. Altiostar Executive Vice Pres- But in order to do that and take ad- VMware’s Sachin Katti told RCR ident of Strategy and Product vantage of this new control, they Wireless News that the goal of an Management Thierry Maupilé dis- need to have their own capabilities. expanded collaboration with Intel cussed another angle of managing Some of them will struggle.” is “essentially taking a lot of the multi-vendor networks, specifi- In a recent partnership announce- integration risk out of the system cally how to coordinate software ment, Intel and VMware focused and mak[ing] sure these things updates and enable network man- in on simplifying the integration work well before they even hit the agement to engage in continuous piece. They’re working to let ser- operator. We don’t want the opera- integration and continuous devel- vice providers develop use cases on tors to be nervous about an Open opment. For 5G, this type of DevOps top of a vRAN platform by building RAN deployment.”

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Caroline Chan from Intel noted In a discussion around what marks “quite a bit of friction” in scaling an Open RAN deployment — O-RAN Open RAN deployments related to Alliance interface specifications interoperability testing, RAN inte- and software running on kit from gration and integration with telco a single vendor or full modularity clouds. “We’re trying to remove that of hardware and software compo- by working with VMware. Doing nents — Nokia’s Tommi Uitto, presi- one [Open RAN deployment] is hard dent of mobile networks, said, “You but the second one, the third and can build Open RAN with bare met- fourth should not be as difficult.” al and with vRAN or cloud RAN. In February this year, Deutsche You can build vRAN or cloud RAN Telekom announced it was working which is O-RAN-compliant or not with Intel and VMware to test and O-RAN-compliant…If an operator “Integrate what you have to and validate a vRAN platform that in- wants to buy hardware from a third open what you can.” corporates standards developed by party, then they can do so and they Marcus Weldon, Corporate CTO, the O-RAN Alliance. Katti said the can put our cloud RAN software to Nokia and President of Nokia new announcement “is expanding run on top of it. Our policy in cloud Bell Labs on this partnership and building RAN is that we have a full stack if on that to really make it a pre-inte- somebody wants it.” interworked. Maybe where we grated platform. Think of this as a Corporate CTO and President of should be aiming…is somewhere natural evolution as well as quite a Nokia Bell Labs Marcus Weldon, in the middle.” Weldon said all four few new capabilities.” speaking during a webinar, laid out are valid models and that many four options that represent differ- high-performance telecom systems When does open become closed? ent degrees of openness and inte- sit in the top left quadrant. “I think Another question that has been gration–platform component mi- of this as open and integrated,” in raised as Open RAN has gained croservices, dynamic web services, that integrated modules are con- momentum is where is the line be- bespoke platform services and nected to one another via open tween an open and closed system? guaranteed performance systems. interfaces. As operators strategize As you could imagine, vendors that “Not all openness is good and not in an effort “to find the bullseye sell integrated RAN while also fa- all closed-ness is good,” he said. in the middle” Weldon’s advice is cilitating open interfaces have a “And equally, not always is it nec- to “integrate what you have to and slightly different take than smaller essary to be highly integrated and open what you can.” players that work in specific niches in many cases it’s good to be more O’Donnell of Viavi said it’s im- of the RAN. loosely integrated and dynamically portant, in Open RAN, “that it can

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believe interoperability is key to the success of this marketplace...So, Marcus, we’re ready and waiting for the Nokia radio. I think there’s a lot of discussion about Open RAN but proof is in the eating as they say.”

So is Open RAN ready for primetime? Given that the interest in 5G and the security of telecom systems both produced and deployed in the U.S. and globally reaches the high- Image courtesy of Nokia est level of government, it reason- plug and play with different man- need for supply chain diversity.” ably follows that there’s some dis- ufacturers’ products. If you have Another angle that becomes appar- crepancy in opinion. While some products which can communicate ent post-sales, Bagasrawala said, officials seem bullish on Open RAN across those interfaces then, to is the ability to pull out one mod- as a vector of disruption, that’s a me, that’s open. But you start in- ular piece of the RAN and put in not a uniform position. U.S. Attor- troducing proprietary signaling on something different. “My concept ney General William Barr made his either of those interfaces then, to of open is…how can you take one stance crystal clear back in Feb- me, that’s closing it in. It’s losing its module and replace it with another. ruary: “Recently there has been openness there. I think it’s import- That’s what I classify as open.” some talk about trying to develop ant to keep all of those...aspects During a panel at the FCC’s Open an Open RAN approach, which addressed to avoid it becoming a RAN virtual session , Weldon con- aims to force open the RAN into its closed solution.” tinued to build on the narrative components and have those com- Altiostar’s Shabbir Bagasrawala of open and integrated. Mavenir’s ponents be developed by U.S. or also falls on the side of open and John Baker, senior vice president Western innovators. The problem modular as essential to Open RAN. of business development, jumped is that this is pie in the sky. This “Open is probably, from my per- in following comments form AT&T: approach is completely untested spective, the fact that we’re creat- “Mavenir is waiting for the oppor- and would take many years to get ing a modular RAN. There’s multi- tunity. When AT&T starts the pro- off the ground, and it would not be ple reasons why there’s this drive cess, we’re willing and able and I ready for primetime for a decade, for modularity. I think there’s an throw that out also to Marcus about if ever. What we need today, as I industry-wide recognition of the this interoperability testing. We said, was a product that can win

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contracts right now, a proven in- is happening. The realignment will Rabinovitsj from Facebook Con- frastructure, one that will blunt mean there’s a complete hardware/ nectivity also called out two key Huawei’s advance.” software decoupling. That will be- points at the intersection of 5G and Rakuten Mobile and DISH obvi- come the norm.” Open RAN: the focus on driving ously don’t agree with that position down TCO for the entire telecom given the focus of their invest- Beyond Open RAN stack, and allowing operators to ments. Nor do other players in the Continuing this trend of disaggre- build the engineering muscles nec- Open RAN ecosystem. gation, virtualization and commod- essary to deliver new, value-added CommScope’s Matt Melester is itization has implications beyond services. The industry should use looking at a multi-year timeline for just Open RAN. 5G was intentionally this moment “to reshape the way Open RAN at scale. “Three years, we designed to be flexible and adapt- the networks operate and the way think, is probably the earliest we able. As such, the networks have to they’re deployed. Use this 5G mo- think we’ll see it take off and scale. mirror that as does the way services ment to just completely change all We’re doing things that are just more are developed and deployed. the ways they’ve been building out in terms of research as opposed to “If you really want to deliver the and deploying networks. There is product development – being at a promise of 5G and multiple use cas- this potential now with the way the position in that point in time where es, to make sure you can satisfy use RAN is architected. We have this we would have our options open. cases with very different require- ability to move more and more of The focus is to work with the OEM ments, you need to have two things this processing closer to the edge of community on those solutions.” happening in the network,” Maupilé the network. There’s a real advan- O’Donnell pointed to the quick said. “Great flexibility in how you tage to that in terms of developing growth of the O-RAN Alliance as a are going to deploy different net- very specific services.” proof point. “I’m very much of the work functions...You can put those Shenbagaraman also picked up on opinion that it’s not over-hyped.” network elements wherever you moving intelligence to the network Shenbagaraman pointed to Open want.” And, “The network has to be- edge in service of deployment and RAN as part of the larger move come a platform and the platform service flexibility, but said there’s toward virtualization and com- has to expose the APIs that have still work to be done to realize this. moditization of hardware. “I think never been exposed before. The eco- “It is something that’s still evolving there’s going to be a lot more in- system which is going to sit above – how to enable this. The talk about novation made possible with this is more aligned with different ver- hosting services closer to the edge underlying disaggregated architec- ticals — healthcare or retail or auto- has been around and a lot of play- ture and there’s going to be disrup- motive or manufacturing — so you ers have emerged. What is not there tion. The trend has already start- can write applications on this net- yet, I would say, is crystallization in ed...There is a reconfiguration that work for a particular use case.” terms of the standard, templatized

34 FEATURE REPORT

applications people are excited during a webinar presentation. “This about with edge computing are is within grasp.” But to achieve the kind of the end goal here,” Katti goals of network self-management explained. “We want to bring the and healing, “collaboration and cloud to the RAN…with the goal ecosystem” are imperative. “What that eventually applications can happens if entire telco networks be- leverage the cloud all the way to come commoditized? The functions the edge to run things you can- and the application onboarding not do today. Apart from having becomes easier. The advancements a cloud platform that you can run that happen in software and the ex- these cloud applications on at the citement we have about Open RAN edge, the other thing we’re focusing is not just simply and purely about “There has to be a level of on is these applications don’t just sit the fact that I’m just opening the [ra- simplification. The key thing alongside the RAN; they can inter- dio] interfaces. It’s about the future here is making it more robust in act with the RAN.” possibilities when these networks terms of managing the solution.” In previous conversation, Chan become fully autonomous.” Ganesh Shenbagaraman, Vice has characterized 5G, AI and edge President of Engineering, Radisys compute all as key to digital trans- Editor’s note: Discussing Open RAN in a vacuum is near-impossible architectures that can serve for formation. “I really see 5G con- given the massive technological different use cases. There seems to nectivity as an enabler but edge confluence encompassed by 5G. be any number of ways to achieve compute and AI is really the angle Attendant technology sets like mobile the same solution. There’s too much for the operator to have that ROI. edge computing, distribution of core functionality, artificial intelligence fluidity today about how to address Everything that we’re building has and machine learning, closed-loop those edge use cases but some pat- the compute capability, has the analytics, spectral variation and terns are emerging.” storage capability.” more, are all part of this conversation. He further highlighted the impor- Beyond Open RAN, Amin is fo- Given the constraints of this format, we’ve attempted to focus on Open RAN tance of making the involved tech- cused on network automation which while providing a broader context of nologies easy to consume, which he called the “main scale differenti- how it touches other aspects of a 5G harkens back to the key role of ator.” He sketched out Rakuten Mo- network. Please read previous reports system integration. “There has to bile’s roadmap: process automation, and look for upcoming content that be a level of simplification. The key cognitive process automation, intro- will continue this important and complex discussion. thing here is making it more robust duction of virtual agents and analyt- RCR Wireless News editors Catherine in terms of managing the solution.” ics, and AI/ML-based execution. Sbeglia and Juan Pedro Tomas “Edge computing and the “This is not a whitepaper,” he said contributed to this report.

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