A bright future with Open Radio Access Network: Yet another open-source breakthrough to drive innovation

In the past few months, the current pandemic has drawn attention to just how much reliance we have on network connectivity to continue to operate and work. The emergence and adoption of 5G technologies will make connectivity an even more lucrative medium, and change for the better the way we go about conducting our business. 5G will increase the network speed and improve the performance and reliability of applications such as video streaming, and eventually pave the way for the development of new transformational applications that cannot be supported by 4G today.

Mobile phones use radio waves to communicate by converting our voice and data into digital signals, which are then sent through as radio waves. For our mobile phones to connect to a network or the internet, it connects first through a Radio Access Network (RAN).

Important to know is that RAN infrastructures have been traditionally dominated by proprietary technologies, and hence lack any interoperability with other vendors, which ultimately makes them a very costly infrastructure to operate. This cost and lack of openness have proven to be a hindrance to innovation and efficiency.

The issue with this is the fast evolution of the mobile generations such as 2G / 3G / LTE and now 5G that requires a countrywide upgrade and roll out of completely new infrastructure every few years. In the past, it has left telecom operators with no choice – if they needed to keep up with the latest technology, they had to invest in this next-generation network, and sometimes, this happened before they could realize the investment in their current RAN technology stack. Today, RAN accounts for nearly 65% to 75% of total network cost and this is the technology that is most difficult to change. In some countries, there are up to a million cell sites and the cost of doing any change/upgrade to these is prohibitive.

Unfortunately, some telecommunications market leaders rely on and continue to build closed technologies that prevent the integration of hardware or software from different vendors. This has created a global bottleneck in the availability of critical 5G technologies.

Some of the key limitations that these closed systems have created are:

- Impeding competition and innovation - Inhibiting third parties from developing offerings that will work with those systems prevents a "plug and play" approach to 5G, and this lack of competitive pressure reduces incentives for incumbent companies to innovate.

- Increasing vendor lock-in and driving up costs - Vendor lock-in can force customers to continue to use these closed systems lest they pay high switching costs to replace their entire network.

- Jeopardizing reliability - Should a 5G network rely heavily on closed technology from only one provider, the reliability and trustworthiness of the network are put in jeopardy if the provider becomes unable to maintain these technologies.

The Open RAN initiative is the answer to many of the above challenges. By decoupling hardware and software and enabling the use of commodity hardware to run RAN software, it provides the opportunity for innovation. What this translates to is that Radio Access Networks can be remotely upgraded without the need for costly upgrades to the underlying infrastructure.

Now, in contrast to the limitations listed above, let us draw a comparison to the possibilities Open RAN brings to the table:

- Dynamic scalability - The network is better equipped to handle spikes and temporary surge on load based on customer demand.

- The flexibility of the architecture - Network operators can choose the best of breed technology and support multiple generations (4G or 5G) in various deployment scenarios. 

- Network slicing - Network slicing is a concept of running multiple logical networks as virtually independent business operations on a common physical infrastructure efficiently and economically.

From the 3 possibilities listed above, network slicing is one of the key enablers to achieve commercial benefits. Network slicing allows a mobile operator to create virtual networks that can cater to specific clients and use cases. Applications such as mobile broadband, machine-to-machine communications (e.g. in manufacturing or logistics), or even smart cars can benefit from leveraging different aspects and capabilities of 5G technology. For instance, one application might require higher speeds, another low latency, and yet another access to edge computing resources. 

IBM has taken a clear direction to adopt the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) standard. IBM today is playing a much bigger role in this space by not only supporting O-RAN, but also many of the Telco core components.

One way in which IBM is aligning is through its IBM Telco Network Cloud Manager offering. IBM Telco Network Cloud Manager is a new intelligent, optimized and open telecommunications management solution offered by IBM and Red Hat to significantly accelerate service delivery and reduce ongoing operational expenses. By providing flexible orchestration and service assurance, it can help you rapidly develop, deploy and scale new services and even reduce response time by more than 5x.

Learn more about taking back control and managing your evolving hybrid cloud environment by visiting the IBM Telco Network Cloud Manager website or message me if you have any questions.