Lab tests at the University of Utah show a 9-12 percent energy reduction, with live tests also planned
A group led by Vodafone demonstrated energy saving techniques for Open RAN systems at last week’s Global PlugFest Spring 2022. Vodafone, Wind River, Intel, Keysight Technologies and Radisys demonstrated energy-saving techniques under lab conditions, with company spokespeople speaking out about the need for industry focus and consensus around power optimization.
Vodafone’s goal is to improve to make future networks built to support 5G and Open RAN more efficient than today’s networks. Vodafone Open RAN Senior Engineer Nikoleta Patroni noted the company’s plans to deploy Open RAN across 30% of all its mobile sites operating in Europe by 2030.
“We plan to exceed the energy efficiency of today’s mobile networks. To achieve this, we need a standardized approach to evaluating, testing, measuring, and monitoring energy consumption of dis-aggregated multi-vendor Open RAN. This will provide a greater degree of transparency and help accelerate the acceptance of Open RAN technology for larger-scaled commercial deployments,” she added.
The tests took place under laboratory conditions at the University of Utah’s POWDER Lab, its wireless networking test facility. POWDER stands for the Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research. The POWDER lab is one of four that participated in an O-RAN “PoCFest” to demonstrate Open RAN proofs of concept.
“POWDER is an end-to-end platform for research on mobile wireless networks. It provides radios that are programmable down to the waveform, attached to a network that can be configured by the user, connected to a wide variety of compute, storage, and cloud resources. Researchers can use this platform to build their own wireless networks, using existing protocols or technologies (such as 4G and MIMO), up-and-coming ones (such as 5G and massive MIMO), or new ones that they invent and build from the ground up. In this environment, they can experiment with novel networks, devices, and application,” said the University of Utah.
The PoCFest provided a way for lab groups to demonstrate already-defined O-RAN use cases, as well as some that are still in the process of specification. In total, labs participating in the vent tested more than 20 unique O-RAN components to make sure they conform to O-RAN specifications.
The tests used both simulated and live non-customer traffic, but Vodafone’s Patroni called for more testing to be done across multiple Open RAN sites that support actual customer traffic. She also called for the industry to “pull together” to help improve Open RAN efficiency further.
“We have an opportunity to introduce greener technology that at the same time delivers even better connectivity for customers. But we can’t do it alone, we need the entire industry to pull together, and the O-RAN Alliance and the Work Group 6 provides the best environment for vendors and operators to work together and align the Industry on this important topic,” she concluded.
