Assessment of Open Ran: Difference between revisions

Most telecommunications executives interviewed by Senza Fili believe that Open Ran is the greatest disruptions in the industry<ref name=":0">https://senzafili.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SenzaFili_DD_ORAN_Ecosystem.pdf</ref>. Patrick Lopez, Global VP of Product Management for 5G at NEC said, “If we look at how fast Open RAN has emerged and reached a level of maturity that allows deployments at scale, we may conclude that it is one of the fastest-moving technologies in the telecom market ever.” His views were echoed by others who believe that Open Ran would help them solve vendor-lock ins and other issues that were common in the traditional RAN. However, they also noted that Open Ran comes with its own challenges, which need the cooperation of the whole industry to overcome them. The greatest challenge being integration. The good news is that integration is easier in greenfield deployments when compared to brownfield deployments. That is why most deployments have been in rural areas where the operators have to start from scratch. Deloitte estimates that as of December 2020, there were 35 Open Ran deployments in the world. Around 85% of the deployments were in developing markets, with the majority being done in rural areas.  But what exactly is Open Ran? Can it replace the traditional RAN? Does it reduce costs as argued by most experts? Let’s have a look!                                 

Radio Access Network (RAN) is a telecommunications network component that links your mobile phone or laptop to the core network<ref name=":1">https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/velliet_open_ran_2022_us.pdf</ref>. It comprises radio units (RUs), antenna and baseband units (BBUs) in the case of a 4G network. The BBU consists of centralized units (CUs) and distributed units (DUs). The RUs are responsible for sending and receiving data, whereas the BBUs process that data. In a traditional RAN architecture, the interface between the BBU and the RU is closed while all other interfaces are open. The Open RAN architecture aims to solve this, as shown by the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) figures below.     

As shown in figure 2, the Open Ran architecture disaggregates the BBU into DU and CU using the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards and creates open interfaces between them. The open interfaces enable the operator to incorporate many vendors into its network, as we will discuss further in this report. However, it should be noted that this is not the only work of the Open Ran architecture. With Open Ran deployment, the operator benefits from its many other features.   

Open Ran has received a lot of interest from telcos due to its many expected benefits. Its ability to expand into other areas, such as automation and virtualization, makes industry players want to deploy it as soon as possible. Below are its main benefits.   

Vendor lock-in is when the network operator is restricted to only one vendor. For instance, in vendor lock-in, the player supplying the hardware should be the same one supplying the software. As illustrated by the Parallel Wireless chart below, Open Ran removes such vendor lock-ins<ref name=":0" />. With Open Ran, an operator can add software from vendor B to hardware from vendor A and vice versa being true.  

Open Ran provides flexibility in many ways<ref name=":0" />. First, it enables the vendor to choose its hardware and software supplier. This improves the quality of the network. Secondly, it enables the vendor to choose the timeline of various deployments within the Open Ran architecture. For example, the operator can start with a single vendor and then initiate multi-vendor deployments later. Similarly, the operator can choose whether to deploy visualization and automation immediately or wait until the first phase pays off first. Thirdly, Open Ran enables the operator to optimize the network to meet their needs, unlike when the vendor provided a single optimized solution.

Open Ran removes the monopolistic behavior that has dominated the industry for a long-time. Traditionally, the supply of hardware and software products was shared among three players, namely Ericsson, Nokia, and Huawei<ref name=":1" />. This made the closed network solution supplied by these vendors expensive. However, Open Ran will create diversity as Dr. Femi Adeyemi, Head of Wireless at Fujitsu Network Communications<ref name=":0" />, said, “The entrance barriers are low, and many new players can enter the environment. But the exit barriers are also low. A wide ecosystem forces vendors to be competitive.” His words were echoed by Peter Claydon, President of Picocom<ref name=":1" />, who said, “Open RAN can democratize the ecosystem by lowering the barriers to entry and allowing more players to enter the market.”

Open Ran introduces complexity that did not exist in traditional Ran<ref name=":2">https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/pt/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/TEE/The-Open-Future-of-Radio-Access-Networks.pdf</ref>. This will encourage the operator to deploy various automation features such as Ran Intelligent Controller (RIC), which manages the APIs deployed in the network. RIC leverages analytics and AI/ML, hence resolving issues within the shortest time possible.

Although Open Ran can do without Virtual Ran (vRan) and Cloud Ran(cRan), their addition to the network will enable the operator to reap its full benefits<ref name=":0" />. Virtualization is the separation of hardware and software features. On the other hand, Cloud Ran refers to the realization of RAN functions over a generic computing platform instead of visiting a network site. Any RAN performance issues can cause havoc to the customer; hence its operations need to be handled via a data center approach<ref name=":2" />. This is accomplished via virtualization and cloud-native architecture. It should also be noted that the RAN’s flexibility will not be fully achieved without virtualization.