Assessment of Open Ran: Difference between revisions

The RAN segment consumes around 80% of the total CAPEX needed to build a network<ref name=":6" />. This calls for ways to reduce it, especially due to the rising challenges of flat revenues and increasing maintenance costs. Cost savings in Open Ran depend on many factors. For instance, an operator can save on the total cost of ownership(TCO) by choosing cheap vendors and proprietary solutions instead of COTs hardware. Adding visualization and cloud-native architecture will also help the vendor reduce maintenance costs. In general, cost savings can only be achieved if the operator chooses the most efficient options offered by Open Ran. But there have been testimonies confirming that Open Ran indeed reduces costs. For example, Rakuten said it reduced CAPEX by 40% when it deployed Open Ran instead of traditional Ran<ref name=":5" />. A report by Deloitte indicates that Open Ran can reduce CAPEX and OPEX by up to 50% and 35%, respectively.

Rakuten, Dish and NTT Docomo are the only operators that have started deploying Open Ran at scale. However, many other operators have either started deploying Open Ran in rural areas or testing it in labs. Example of these operators are Vodafone, AT&T, etisalat, MTN, and Telefonica. Below is a brief description of how far each network has gone.

Rakuten was the first greenfield operator to launch Open Ran at scale in its commercial network in Japan. It began building its network in 2018. However, it was not until 2020 that it started building its 4G network. Six months later, it launched 5G in its Network. It is currently constructing massive MIMOs for its Open Ran architecture. The interesting thing about Rakuten's network is that it's visualized, automated, and is based on cloud-native architecture<ref name=":4" />. This means that it stands to reap all the benefits associated with Open Ran once the network reached maturity phase.