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5 Strategies to Deploying Open vRAN in Brownfield Networks

5 Strategies to Deploying Open vRAN in Brownfield Networks Image Credit: MoonSplinters/Bigstockphoto.com

At Altiostar, we’ve seen a growing interest in Open vRAN from brownfield mobile operators. In fact, our trials and other engagements with these carriers has more than quadrupled in the last year, far outpacing the number of greenfield prospects in our pipeline.

This increase in interest comes in the face of market skepticism from some in the industry around the challenge of integrating Open vRAN into an already established proprietary network. Open vRAN supports features for co-existence with existing 2G, 3G and 4G deployments. Also, with Open vRAN deployments in the densest of networks such as in Japan, it has been clearly proven that Open vRAN works across both 4G and 5G.

With greenfield Open vRAN deployments taking place around the world, existing MNOs are starting to feel the financial pressure of competing against these new, lower cost networks. Open vRAN realizes these cost benefits from the use of COTS hardware, automation features, and a thriving and growing open ecosystem that offers real competition, helping to drive down network costs.

Existing MNOs have also been adjusting to the profit margin squeeze that has come from skyrocketing demand for data services which requires network upgrades that haven’t yielded significant increases in average revenue per user (ARPU). This trend will only continue as higher speed 5G networks become ubiquitous. This means that operators need to find ways to reduce their costs. Open vRAN, with its support for automation, will help brownfield operators bring down OpEx.

The question that comes up in an existing brownfield network is how to combine new Open vRAN technology with the legacy, proprietary network equipment already in place. The key is to take a phased approach that makes it easier to seamlessly integrate Open vRAN into the evolution of an operator’s overall network strategy. There are several strategies that we have seen mobile network operators (MNOs) successfully implement in adopting Open vRAN into their network.

  • Trial Open vRAN in Single Geography for 4G: After the proof of concept (PoC) has been successfully completed, one strategy is to first deploy Open vRAN for 4G in a single geography, or in an area where a new frequency band is being deployed. This has the benefit of not only determining the performance benefits, but also allows the MNO to develop the right procurement procedures for when the time comes to expand that network.
  • Trial Open vRAN in 4G/5G greenfield network expansion projects: This is how several tier 1 operators, including Telefonica, are introducing Open vRAN into their networks. Telefonica has publicly committed to trials in the UK, Germany, Spain and Brazil for Open vRAN. But this strategy could be deployed on a much more local level as well.
  • Follow Open vRAN Blueprints: Some operators are taking lessons from the data center world and developing multiple Open vRAN blueprints with different partners. These blueprints include RAN, remote radio units, antennas, and other network elements that are tested and certified by Altiostar and can be deployed by operators with full peace of mind that this end-to-end solution is fully integrated and will work once deployed. Altiostar’s team is continually working with multiple cloud, radio and hardware platform vendors on these blueprints. As part of this effort, we have successfully on-boarded our network functions on different public and private clouds as part of this model.
  • Build Open vRAN 5G network: Even in a brownfield network, the 5G network is greenfield, so use open vRAN in these deployments. Open vRAN is significantly easier to deploy and much more flexible for both small cell and macro deployments where needed. This is important with the expected cell and device density in 5G, which drives the industry to look at ways to automate the deployment and operations. The legacy models of manual service deployment and manual fault, configuration, accounting, performance, security (FCAPS) monitoring will not scale in this new era. The siloed FCAPS approach that worked up until now must be replaced by a holistic approach where service creation and service monitoring are interlinked. Service creation should be intent driven where operator can specify the required service, SLA, etc., and the system takes care of translating this into necessary configurations. Altiostar is also seeing increased traction for deploying 5G in standalone mode from multiple operators. This allows for a greenfield deployment of 5G network in a brownfield LTE network. In this case the 5G deployment from an Open RAN vendor can independently be deployed and can co-exist with an incumbent LTE network.
  • Build Open vRAN 5G on top of existing LTE network: For 5G deployed as capacity expansion on top of existing LTE network, in non-standalone mode, X2 interface interoperability shall be ensured between the incumbent LTE eNB vendor and the open RAN gNB vendor by complying to O-RAN Alliance’s open X2 profiles for the control and user plane.

Open vRAN has the performance and deployment cost advantage to make it the default for greenfield mobile networks, but these benefits also make it beneficial for brownfield networks as well. Using one of the strategies identified above, operators can cost effectively add Open vRAN to their current networks to be more competitive and agile.

Author

Sridhar Bhaskaran is Senior Product Manager at Altiostar Networks, Bangalore, where he is involved in the deployment of Open RAN architectures. Previously, he worked with Cisco Systems and Huawei Technologies as a 3GPP delegate.  He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science Engineering from Coimbatore Institute of Technology.

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