Samsung Networks and Verizon announced the first fully virtualized, end-to-end 5G data connection, ... [+] highlighting the growing opportunity for Open RAN technology in 5G networks.
It is not an easy task to make sense of 5G wireless networks. Not only are there a wide variety of complicated individual pieces needed to create a network, theres also the manner by which those pieces interconnect, the software used to control them, the standards and protocols they need to support, and, well, yeahits a lot.
Of course, most people dont really have to worry about how a wireless network of any kind works, as long as it does what its supposed to do. However, if you want to make sense of the growing applications for 5G and what may or may not be possible at any given time or place, then you should understand at least some of the basic principles behind how it works.
One of the most interesting capabilities promised for 5G, for example, is network slicing. The idea with network slicing is that you can virtualize and then isolate a given set of data traffic or a specific application all within a single shared physical network. So, for example, if you want to separate time-sensitive IoT traffic for manufacturing-based sensors from the data traffic on a consumers smartphone or even provide a private VPN-style connection for a companys employees, network slicing can provide this and much, much more.
In order to do these types of tasks, 5G networks need more compute power and more sophisticated software than previous generations of wireless networks have required. As a result, theres been a lot of discussion about changing the overall architecture of the infrastructure used to power 5G networks. Traditionally, most of the equipment used in cellular wireless networks comes from a few dedicated vendors, notably Ericsson, Nokia, and more recently, Samsungs Network division. (Huawei has also been a significant player in the network equipment infrastructure, but recent geopolitical challenges have begun to reduce its impact outside of China.)
For decades, the traditional network equipment vendors have primarily made very sophisticated, but essentially proprietary, pieces of equipment that are used at the heart of cellular networks around the world. Over the last few years, however, there have been industry-wide movements to open up these proprietary boxes, particularly because of the expanding compute requirements for 5G. In particular, theres been a growing call to open up the RAN, or radio access network, portion of the network infrastructure. The RAN is the part of the mobile network that sits between your smartphone or any other end-user device (including things like IoT sensors, connected cars, etc.) and the core telecom network. The RAN handles the reception and transmission of the wireless signals used to communicate between devices and the main network (and then out to the cloud), so it plays a critical role for applications like network slicing.
The reason for this interest in moving to more flexible, open standards is, in many ways, analogous to the move to virtualization in servers and then the migration to cloud computing models. More sophisticated application demands, along with greater overall demand for bandwidth has put traditional telecom markets under a great deal of strain. The ability to virtualize and share resources more efficiently, along with the standardization around more general-purpose hardware, has much of the same appeal to modern wireless networks as it did to enterprise data centers and cloud computing providers more than a decade ago. Toss in the increasingly sophisticated software used to manage all these resources, and the comparisons to cloud computing, as well as the seeming inevitability of the change for wireless networks, seems undeniable.
But it turns out things arent quite as simple as that in the telco world. First, while uptime and reliability are incredibly important for cloud-based computing services and the applications that run on them, the utility-like service of wireless networks demands even more reliability. Think about it this wayhaving Zoom go down for a few hours this week was bad, but if your entire internet (or mobile) connection went down for the same amount of time, it would be much worse. Indeed, to their immense credit, wireless (and broadband) networks have been impressively resilient throughout the course of the pandemic and, thankfully, have proven to be incredibly reliable under tremendous strain.
Part of the reason for this is that the RAN portion of wireless networks are significantly more distributed. While that makes it harder for larger portions to go down at the same time, it makes it much more challenging to upgrade all the different pieces that need to be upgraded in order to make this transition to an open, software-controlled, virtualized environment. Directly related to all of this is that the mindset of many telco network providers is more like that of a utility than it is a cutting-edge cloud computing service. At times, the methodical, conservative pace at which many telcos make changes to their networks can be frustrating to those whove become accustomed to the lightning-fast pace at which other aspects of the technology industry move. When it comes to reliability, however, and the dependence we all have on these networks, a more measured pace of change does start to make sense.
Even within these constraints, weve started to see some important movements towards a more open, virtualized network environment. In fact, just this week Verizon teamed with Samsung Networks and Intel to announce that they had completed what they claim is the worlds first fully virtualized end-to-end 5G data session over an Open RAN. In particular, the company created a service that provided access for mobile developers to AWSs Wavelength edge computing platform over Verizons 5G network. As simple as that may sound, it actually required a great deal of effort across a host of different elements, such as Samsungs new virtual CU (Central Unit) and virtual DU (Distributed Unit) components, which replace traditional proprietary network infrastructure hardware with software that runs on general-purpose computing hardware.
There has also been growing interest in Open RAN technologies from a number of other places. Not surprisingly, traditional computing and data networking hardware and software vendorscompanies like Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, IBM and others, as cloud providers like Amazon and Google (in addition to Microsoft) have been eager to see telcos move into technologies and platforms for which they have a wide range of capable offerings. Interestingly, weve also seen traditional network equipment vendors start to get behind Open RAN. In addition to Samsung Networks efforts, Nokia has also come out as a strong supporter of the concept, believing that certain aspects of the RAN could benefit from more flexible options.
Carriers have also started to talk more about the potential for Open RAN. In addition to this Verizon announcement, AT&T has publicly discussed its own support for Open RAN on several other occasions. In Japan, Rakuten has built a completely virtualized 5G network, relying heavily on Open RAN and other modern network technologies. Of course, Rakuten had the huge benefit, at least from an architectural perspective, of not having any existing legacy network infrastructure to upgrade or replace. As with the first enterprise data centers that started making the move to cloud computing many years back, the big US carriers have a huge installed base of legacy equipment that they cant just easily switch out. As a result, even though theres strong interest in moving to more modern network infrastructures, the move to Open RAN is clearly going to be a multi-year process.
At the same time, there can be challenges to moving to new environments as well. Some of Rakutens well documented early issues centered around trying to piece together a wide range of different components from many different vendors. Glitches and delays are fine for a carrier that everyone understands is starting from scratch, but not really acceptable for large, established telcos.
The bottom line is that the drive to adopt Open RAN and other more modern, software-defined, virtualizable network topologies is unquestionably moving forward, but the ultimate pace at which it occurs is going to be dependent on how easily network equipment vendors can make the transition possible for carriers. Given the incentive of speeding up the delivery of new 5G services, like network slicing, as well as improving the overall efficiencies and costs of running those networks, the appeal to move to Open RAN is strong. At this point, its just a question of practical realities and how motivated all the various participants are in making it happen.
Disclosure: TECHnalysis Research is a tech industry market research and consulting firm and, like all companies in that field, works with many technology vendors as clients, some of whom may be listed in this article.
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Will 5G Networks Move To Open RAN? - Forbes