The radio access network, or RAN, is a critical component of our daily lives, although most of us don’t give it much thought or even know what it is. The RAN is where our cell phone signal gets on the network – the access point. It then typically travels through a regional data center, through the network core and back out again. With 5G deployments coming online and the introduction of Open RAN, the RAN is becoming much more interesting, and here are 6.5 reasons why.
The radio access network, or RAN, is a critical component of our daily lives, although most of us don’t give it much thought or even know what it is.
gettyBefore we get into those reasons, it’s worth taking a moment to introduce Open RAN for those who are unfamiliar with it. Open RAN allows for the disaggregation of the key pieces of the RAN. These pieces include the radio unit, the distributed unit and the centralized unit. Open RAN helps to “open” the protocols and interfaces between the radios, the compute platform, the software infrastructure and the applications. Breaking these components apart gives telecommunications companies many more choices about how they build their network and with whom.
Now, why you should care:
Number 1: Open RAN opens a new world on the far edge of the network for communications service providers (CSPs) – and that’s not hyperbole. 5G is heavily focused on low-latency, high-bandwidth, high-availability use cases, and you simply can’t get to the new world with old world thinking. New consumer and enterprise use cases require a much more flexible model than can be supported on today’s equipment. Open RAN provides that flexibility. More on that in a moment.
Number 2: 5G will need many more cell sites than the preceding technology due to its relatively short range, and those sites are coming online quickly. A recent report from CTIA found that 67,871 new cell sites were added between 2018 and 2020, which is more than the preceding seven years combined, and there are no signs of slowing down. Considering that many of these sites will be very small, CSPs are focused on getting the most from these sites with the smallest footprint possible, as the cost of every additional resource required will be multiplied across all of the sites. Open RAN provides the ability to select the component pieces that provide the greatest performance per watt, ensuring compute power is being used at its greatest efficiency to provide the needed coverage – and keeping costs for CSPs, and their subscribers, under control.
Number 3: Open RAN gives the ability to address demand more efficiently. By virtualizing the RAN you can bring up infrastructure, applications and services as they are needed. Once the physical hardware is in place, you can provision the software infrastructure and allocate resources to the services needed in that area. This capability is coming into play as CSPs provide 5G coverage for sporting venues, for example. Open RAN provides a flexible framework to enable adding coverage quickly, then scaling back when not needed. In the past, any area would need to be over-provisioned to ensure coverage, even though most of the time the equipment would be sitting idle.
Number 4: Open RAN fosters community and collaboration. The O-RAN alliance was founded in February 2018 by AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DOCOMO and Orange and has since grown to include 29 of the top CSPs globally, along with more than 125 members and contributors. Then there is the Telecom Infra Project, with hundreds of members working to “accelerate the development and deployment of open, disaggregated, and standards-based technology solutions that deliver the high quality connectivity that the world needs – now and in the decades to come.” These two organizations bring together people and companies that may otherwise compete, to collaborate in building a better network.
Number 5: The future is happening now. Verizon has deployed a disaggregated virtual RAN solution, and Vodafone plans to deploy Europe’s first commercial Open RAN network, starting in the U.K. and then extending to other countries in Europe and Africa. NTT DOCOMO has created their 5G Open RAN Ecosystem to accelerate Open RAN to operators globally. Open RAN isn’t just a neat idea or lab experiment anymore, it’s actually being brought to commercial life by Tier 1 CSPs.
Number 6: It will power the future economy. 70% of GDP growth in the global economy between now and 2030 will be driven by connected machines and intelligent systems, according to PwC. This is a near $7 trillion contribution to U.S. GDP. Of the 13 key characteristics we’ve found to be critical for success with these intelligent systems, compute at the far edge is a technology that connects and enables them all. Open RAN will provide the framework for much of this compute.
And the last “.5” point: There is a general shift away from traditional, monolithic systems that may have been completely provided by one vendor toward disaggregated and open systems of the future. Calling this a half-point is meant to be ironic: This is a massive change in how CSPs are conceptualizing, designing and deploying their network, not to mention the changes to their business model. Rather than selecting one equipment vendor and building a purpose-built appliance for the life of the network, CSPs are working with many vendors to select the best-of-breed components for their system that can be changed as the network demands.
Open RAN is the way of the future. It’s complicated, no doubt, but the flexibility, cost-effectiveness and performance it will provide will enable us to do far more with technology in the future than we’ve yet dreamed of.
