‘What Open RAN delivers is in the eye of the beholder,’ Cellwize CEO says
Around the world, multi-national operators have demonstrated major commitments around Open RAN (O-RAN) systems, with many now focused on its integration into brownfield networks. However, for Cellwize’s CEO Ofir Zemer, Open RAN and the hype around it is complicated. He believes that O-RAN has been used as a catch-all phrase for different things and further, carriers are looking to use this architecture to solve different problems.
“What it delivers is, to a large extent, in the eye of the beholder,” Zemer told RCR Wireless News, adding that a prospect in India may see O-RAN has a way to replace its Huawei kits, as demanded by the Indian government, while other carriers are looking at the rApp aspect of Open RAN to increase the agility and flexibility of their networks.
“We are working with some carriers that are really buying into the reduction of the RAN opex and capax,” he continued, “but honestly, some other carriers we’re working with said according to their calculations, it won’t reduce a thing. Who’s right here? I don’t know; maybe both of them because it might depend.”
While Zemer was quick to explain how Open RAN will likely help operators secure the much-needed additional revenue from 5G by allowing them to offer specialized cellular services and capabilities to enterprises, he also shared that there are three main factors that may limit O-RAN adoption.
First, he said, traditional RAN vendors have only taken one of two approaches: They are either half-heartedly adopting it (like Nokia and Ericsson) or are completely against it (like Huawei and ZTE).
His second point is related to the first: “If they’re against it and you’re a brownfield carrier, even if you’re gung-ho about O-RAN, you’ll still have a huge amount of traditional kit.”
Basically, he explained, the big, traditional vendors aren’t updated their existing kit, even if they are on board with Open RAN. As a result, carriers are still locked into any kit they currently have in their networks, and considering one of the biggest benefits of Open RAN is avoidance of vendor lock-in, this point is certainly notable.
“O-RAN plans are all limited to inbuilding,” Zemer said. “The main driver behind that is that they have no clue how to put it outside of the building within their current macro network. This really limits the extend that O-RAN will pick up.”
The final setback that Zemer shared is one he admits is only something he has heard from the carriers that Cellwize works with, not necessarily something he has tested himself.
“I heard from carriers that the kit coming out [from newer players], is just far away in terms of capacity and capability from the [incumbents]. I don’t know if that is true, but if it is, that is a problem.”
Because Cellwize believes that even if O-RAN is highly successfully, a lot of kit deployed on networks worldwide will not be O-RAN for “many, many years,” the company took a “slightly contrarian view.” Instead of building an Open RAN-compatible service management orchestration (SMO) layer from scratch, Cellwize built a backward and forward compatible SMO. This, Zemer claimed, will allow carriers to have an O-RAN stack and launch it wherever they want, so that they’re two different architectures — O-RAN and non O-RAN— talk to each other seamlessly.
Despite these obstacles, Zemer was clear about the importance of ultimately integrating Open RAN into networks, particularly in the context of 5G: “5G can be deployed without O-RAN, it will just happen much slower, and it will not generate those additional revenue streams that everyone is dreaming about.”
