Over the past five years, the concept of Open RAN has generated significant interest across the telecommunications industry. According to Mobile Experts chief analyst Joe Madden, almost every company in the Radio Access market is “looking into” Open RAN. More specifically, Madden expects Open RAN to be the “choice solution” for coverage issues. As Madden points out, Open RAN hardware and software can be cheaper while achieving similar coverage as traditional architectures.
Open RAN offers several notable advantages for mobile operators. Firstly, Open RAN helps to lower costs with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) processing equipment for the baseband unit (BBU) and commoditization of the RU hardware. Secondly, Open RAN supports the disaggregation of software from proprietary hardware, thereby facilitating the creation and rapid deployment of new services and operational solutions. Thirdly, Open RAN supports a more robust supply chain ecosystem that actively encourages the entry of new vendors to the market. This increases innovation and competition.
As stated above, Open RAN has piqued the interest of many telecommunications companies. However, it is important to understand that there are a number of challenges and legitimate concerns that must be addressed before wider and comprehensive industry adoption of Open RAN is achieved. These include:
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Security: The disaggregation of the RAN increases the number of individual elements and network connections. This has prompted concern from some that Open RAN could potentially be more insecure than its ‘closed’ predecessor due to a greater number of interfaces. Although an understandably valid concern, a paper recently published by 451 Research (now part of S&P Global Market Intelligence) points out that one of the “more impactful aspects” of open vRAN on security is the ability for operators to directly manage trust in their networks. It is with this understanding that an active workstream within O-RAN Working Group #1 is currently addressing security concerns for real-world deployments, many of which are not necessarily isolated to O-RAN.
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Ensuring interoperability: Ensuring viable interoperability for the entire Open RAN ecosystem is a daunting task and therefore a top priority for the O-RAN, Test & Integration Focus Group. Looking beyond O-RAN, testing companies like Keysight are working to enable the O-RAN ecosystem in a comprehensive manner by providing solutions for conformance, performance, and interoperability of all main components of the disaggregated architecture envisioned by O-RAN. These include a fronthaul impairment emulator that enables vendors and operators to test their equipment in a wide array of fronthaul conditions, as well as a realistic channel emulator.
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Efficiency: Running software-based virtualized Open RAN applications may not be as efficient as processing them on purpose-built hardware. Although this is indeed a legitimate concern, the ability of Open RAN components to scale, increase flexibility, and drive down costs through increased competition, innovation, and volume offset this limitation.
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Intellectual property: Due to more sizable budgets and experience, established industry OEMs may maintain more advanced or mature intellectual property (IP). While likely an accurate statement at this juncture, Open RAN’s open and extensive ecosystem can ultimately be expected to drive innovation across the ecosystem and create valuable IP.
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Standards handcuff vendors and stifle innovation: Quite a lot of thought has gone into striking the right balance between standards and innovation for the definition of interfaces. It should be noted that the 3GPP has defined multiple interfaces including X2/Xn, S1/NG, F1, and E1.
Despite the above-mentioned challenges, Open RAN continues to play a significant role in accelerating the deployment of 5G infrastructure. For example, DISH, which has committed to covering 70% of the population by June 2023 with its 5G network, recently selected Open RAN technology for its 5G rollout across the United States. In Japan, Rakuten’s 5G network is based on Open RAN architecture, which allows for mixing and matching of the most appropriate technology for subscribers. Meanwhile, Vodafone has confirmed plans to start Open RAN trials in Europe and Africa, with initial trials expected to focus on mobile calls and data services across 2G, 3G and 4G. Additional Vodafone Open RAN trials involving 5G are expected in the future.
From our perspective, wireless networks are at a pivotal tipping point, with 5G networks poised to deliver higher data rates, support more connected devices, and lower latencies. However, 5G networks also presents enormous complexities for operators. Expecting a single company to offer the best and most innovative RAN solutions is simply unrealistic. Indeed, over the last decade we have witnessed the emergence and evolution of the cloud, software defined networks (SDNs), and open source software. All successfully transformed the data center industry by delivering scalable networks, creating the ability for new applications and services to be quickly introduced, and reducing costs.
Similarly, 5G and open networks will be the catalyst that enables operators to deliver new applications and services more efficiently while expanding their respective business models. To be sure, Open RAN is all about accelerating and reducing the cost of deploying infrastructure. Perhaps most importantly, operators regain control over offering differentiated solutions, rather than relying solely on the same handful of suppliers providing closed platforms. Put simply, competition drives innovation, new business models, and cost savings.
Network architectures, intrinsically designed to protect vendors incumbency positions, have remained essentially unchanged for decades. While operators acknowledge Open RAN is in its early stages, longer term open architecture will drive down costs, manage supply chain risks, and encourage innovation just as cloud and SDN positively disrupted the data center segment.
