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Breaking down the pros of Open RAN

Let’s frame the Open RAN value proposition to better understand the benefits of disaggregating radio hardware and software, trading single-purpose equipment for general-purpose hardware and moving vital network functions into the cloud. First and foremost, network economics need to change; for 5G, and LTE,...

Editorial Webinar: Is Open RAN Key to the 5G Future?

The true benefits of 5G will be realized with massive scale, something that operators will have to pay mightily to achieve. In carrier-led effort to shift network economics in their favor, the open RAN ecosystem has flourished in recent years and is poised for...

AT&T and Verizon call out scale, maturity and integration as Open RAN challenges

Last week the U.S. Federal Communications Commission brought together a variety of Open RAN stakeholders for its Forum on 5G Open Radio Access Networks. While greenfield operators like DISH and Rakuten Mobile seemed steadfast in their conviction that Open RAN was ready to go...

Xilinx takes on Open RAN with telco accelerator card for O-DUs and vBBUs

Xilinx previously tapped by Telefónica in its push for massive Open RAN deployments This week San Jose-based Xilinx announced it's shipping a T1 Telco Accelerator Card designed for 5G Open RAN networks with a specific focus on simplifying Open RAN fronthaul termination at an open...

Telefónica CTIO calls Open RAN a ‘necessity;’ signs MoU with Rakuten Mobile

Partnership includes Open RAN and a drive toward advanced network automation As it continues to pursue integration of Open RAN technologies into its multi-national network footprint, Telefónica Global CTIO Enrique Blanco and Rakuten Mobile CTO and CAO Tareq Amin discussed a newly announced partnership that...

Qualcomm as the ‘engine’ of Open RAN base stations

Speaking during IFA, Qualcomm President discusses the company's role in the RAN Open RAN is having a big impact on the telecom space with major operators around the world embracing disaggregation of radio access network (RAN) hardware and software. The idea is to give operators...

Open RAN 101–Role of CI/CD approach for RAN automation: Why, what, how, when? (Reader Forum)

History The DevOps movement inspired large, enterprise organizations with agile practices to allow developers to make quick changes, but it was very difficult to get full benefit, as their legacy development process was not designed for supporting short software development delivery cycles and frequent production...

NTT and Mavenir target Industry 4.0 in Germany with open private-5G combo

NTT Data, the business services division of NTT Group, is working with open RAN provider Mavenir to jointly develop a “complete range” of radio and core access solutions, plus data and device management platforms and analytics tools, for private 5G and 4G networks in...

Improving indoor connectivity with Open RAN (Reader Forum)

In recent months, the telecommunications industry has been abuzz with news about various initiatives related to Open RAN. Essentially, Open RAN refers to open and interoperable interfaces within and between the various subcomponents of the RAN: the radio, hardware, or baseband unit and software....

Open RAN 101–Open RAN adoption in in different regions: Why, what, when, how? (Reader Forum)

History Most of the CAPEX required to build a wireless network is related to the RAN segment, reaching as high as 80% of the total network cost. Any reduction in the RAN equipment cost will significantly help the bottom line of wireless operators as they...

Who disaggregated my RAN? Part 10: Open and private at once: Open RAN solutions for private networks (Reader Forum)

In my previous blog, I covered the promise and potential of network slicing. Another deployment use case which has seen tremendous interest and demand is the use of private networks. With the increasing digital connectivity of devices and equipment across different industry verticals and...

Open RAN 101–Role of RAN Intelligent Controller: Why, what, when, how? (Reader Forum)

History In 2G and 3G, the mobile architectures had controllers that were responsible for RAN orchestration and management. With 4G, overall network architecture became flatter and the expectation was that, to enable optimal subscriber experience, base stations would use the X2 interface to communicate with...

Who disaggregated my RAN? Part 9: Slice and serve–network slicing in action (Reader Forum)

In my last blog, we briefly touched upon the advanced use cases that are possible in 5G. One such use case is Network Slicing. 5G cellular services should broadly support use cases including enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) and Massive Internet...

Open RAN 101–Integration and beyond: Why, what, when, how? (Reader Forum)

History Software has been “eating the world” for a while now: from consumer, then enterprise and now the telecom value chains. Open RAN is a great example of how software is “eating” telco. What we have learned from the data center approach is that after...

Ericsson CEO: Europe is behind on 5G and O-RAN won’t speed anything up

Is open RAN right for near-term rip-and-replace? Huawei equipment has been ordered removed from networks in the United States and the United Kingdom with speculation that other European markets could soon follow. Advocates of open radio access network technology see this an opportunity to take...

Who disaggregated my RAN? Part 8: Orchestrating the Open RAN symphony (Reader Forum)

We left off in our series having looked at the virtualized and cloud-based open RAN. Now we move on to consider the orchestration part, deploying and managing these cloud-based implementations.   Orchestration, or service management and orchestration (SMO), has been used in the enterprise world for...

Why Open RAN is so vital (Analyst Angle)

Although 2020 has brought numerous challenges to the telecom industry, including geopolitical stresses, the COVID-19 pandemic, and 5G deployment challenges, these events have also highlighted the critical role of fixed and mobile telecom networks in providing economic resilience and national vitality during a period...

Securing 5G: What’s the role of open RAN?

In conjunction with a wide swath of industry stakeholders, the United States federal government is working to form and implement the creatively-titled National Strategy to Secure 5G. Signed by President Trump in March, the strategy has three primary goals: “facilitating domestic 5G rollout; assessing...

Who disaggregated my RAN? Part 7: Virtualized RAN: Closer than you think

In previous blogs in this “Who Disaggregated My RAN? series, we have looked at the benefits of a disaggregated Open RAN, including the growth of an ecosystem to support the deployment of an Open RAN. We have also looked at how these disaggregated solutions...

With expanding RAN market share, Samsung updates 5G vRAN portfolio

As it continues to gain 5G infrastructure market share, Samsung this week announced a virtualized 5G RAN solution comprising virtualized central and distributed units and updated radios. And in keeping with the RAN vendor trend toward “open,” Samsung said the new vRAN solution will...

Open RAN 101–RU, DU, CU: Why, what, how, when? (Reader Forum)

History Functional splits are nothing new. They were initially outlined in 3GPP Release 14 and defined in 3GPP release 15 and where new terminology, interfaces and functional modules were introduced. But why is this RU, DU, CU functional split concept becoming so fundamental in Open...

Who disaggregated my RAN? Part 6: Open RAN: Achieving on-par field performance (Reader Forum)

In this series focused on the benefits of a disaggregated Open RAN, we have had a chance to see how an open RAN has helped expand the ecosystem and led operators to consider new vendor solutions that meet their needs. Standards have emerged which...

Dish embracing O-RAN; selects Altiostar and Fujitsu

The decision is being seen by some as an attempt to better align itself with Japanese firm Rakuten Dish Network will use Altiostar’s cloud-native O-RAN compliant solution for its 5G network buildout, providing the carrier with openness, modularity, agility and scalability. The Altiostar solution leverages...

Open RAN 101–Open RAN: Why, what, how, when? (Reader Forum)

History The entire telecom industry is going through a dramatic change that can be only compared to the change that data centers went through in the 2000s, all driven by Moore’s Law. This is driving the need to move from costly, proprietary RAN solutions to...