Oracle: Operator standalone motivation is growing enterprise revenue
There’s a school of thought around 5G that would suggest effective ROI and service monetization hinges on offering up new, differentiated applications to enterprise users. And to do that, operators need the full 5G feature set–enhanced mobile broadband, support for massive numbers of IoT devices and ultra reliable, low latency communications–served up automatically via a virtually partitioned network slice.
Right now most 5G networks use a non-standalone architecture linking an LTE core to new radios supporting 5G frequency bands. The next step is to replace that evolved packet core with a brand new cloud-native 5G core. Extend the virtualized, software-defined approach all the way out to the radio access network, distribute cloud capabilities out to edge computing clusters, and it’s off to the races.
As operators write multi-billion dollar checks for this generational network upgrade, the pressure is on to realize new 5G service revenues. As such, we’re tracking an accelerated move to standalone 5G. Oracle’s John Lenns, vice president of product management, divides the service provider world into three buckets: early adopters, fast followers, and the mass market.
He told RCR Wireless News in a recent episode of Will 5G Change the World?, “The early adopters are beyond RFIs and are into the RFP process and they’re starting to deploy the standalone architecture core in their networks, starting to prepare those cores to go live.” The fast followers are in the RFI phase and the mass market is still sometime “out in the future.”
As operators make this transition, Lenns said security, security responsiveness, capex, opex, and automation are all top-of-mind. And the end goal? “Operators want to grow their enterprise revenue,” he said. “They want to be successful in seeking that higher margin business.”
Lenns continued: “The standalone architecture with its cloud-native design will be able to support that network slicing capability. The slicing will enable service providers to turn up rapidly and cost-effectively a personalized service for that enterprise…with its own quality of service, quality of experience behavior tailored to the needs of the devices and personnel of the enterprise. It will also bundle in the applications that are tailored for that enterprise.”
Rakuten, Verizon, Vodafone all marking milestones in march to standalone 5G
Japan’s Rakuten Mobile is working with compatriot IT and electronics firm NEC Corporation on a containerized standalone 5G core. Rakuten Mobile would use the cloud-native core in its own 5G network and also look to sell it to other operators and enterprises through its Rakuten Communications Platform offering. The idea there is to have the 5G core as an application available through the Rakuten Communications Platform Marketplace.
Verizon this week announced its first end-to-end data session over its standalone core which the operator plans to begin using later this year with “full commercialization” next year. Verizon called out benefits, including real-time RAN and VNF management, analytics-driven optimization for and between its fixed and mobile networks, and the “ability to move workloads to fit use case requirements.”
Verizon’s Bill Stone, vice president of planning, called out the link between standalone 5G and robust vertical-facing solutions. From a press release, Stone said, “5G technology will bring about solutions in manufacturing, retail, entertainment, sports, education and countless other areas we have not even dreamed of yet. The network we are building, from the base of the 5G technology, to the advancements in the Radio Access Network, to the architectural design changes in the core of the network — are all critical to ensuring we have the most advanced and robust network to support the life- and societal-changing solutions that will come with this new technology.”
A few days ago, Vodafone UK switched-on what it claimed was the first live standalone 5G deployment in the country at Coventry University with a number of partners, including Ericsson, MediaTek, OPPO and Qualcomm.
Voda’s local CTO Scott Petty said current 5G deployments are “only the tip of the iceberg of what 5G can do. With this new live network, we’re demonstrating the future potential of 5G and how it will be so valuable to the U.K. economy…From here, we will really start to see 5G make a difference to the way organizations think about being connected, and what’s possible with that connectivity in the future.”
The standalone network, deployed at Coventry University, uses OPPO 5G devices powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865. OPPO also said it co-developed network slice switching software solutions with Qualcomm.
Also this month Ericsson said it made its standalone 5G software generally available in June and said the software has already been tested by T-Mobile US and Telstra. Ericsson Radio System kit deployed since 2015 can be upgraded to standalone with a software installation. This is the latest piece in Ericsson’s end-to-end standalone solution set anchored on the 5G core.
“Over the past year, we have worked closely with many customers to successfully deploy Non-standalone 5G. These 5G networks have enabled higher data speeds and new use cases. Now we are taking the next step in the evolution of 5G by making generally available the software to support Standalone 5G NR networks,” said Per Narvinger, head of product area networks at Ericsson. “These standalone capabilities will enable even more use cases and applications.”
Based on its work with the Chinese mobile operators as well as the China Broadcasting Network, ZTE said it is seeing a rapid shift to standalone in its home market. Cen Qiong, CTO of multinational Tier 1 operator business, told RCR Wireless News that non-standalone sites are currently being upgraded to support standalone.
“Although China is affected by COVID-19, 5G, as an infrastructure, will become even more important during the pandemic and economy recovering period, which is why the evolution to SA 5G in China is accelerating.”
