With Open RAN, there’s the risk of trading vendor lock-in for system integrator lock-in
With greenfield success stories and increasing interest from brownfield players, it appears Open RAN is happening, but the question remaining is can it happen fast enough to meaningfully change the supplier pool and architectural constructs in the ongoing deployment of 5G. The core problem here in terms of moving from lab to field to scale is analogous to the core value proposition of Open RAN—a disaggregated radio system lets operators select the best component providers and build an optimal solution; conversely, the ability to mix and match hardware and software vendors means investing in complex interoperability testing and solution validation in an ongoing manner that aligns with the ability to push software-upgrades into a live RAN.
A panel of operators and test and measurement providers discussed this tension, and potential solutions, during the the recent Open RAN Global Forum. Moderator Caroline Gabriel, founder of Rethink Research, noted that her firm’s analysis found that of operators saw strong testing processes as a key enabler of deploying new Open RAN systems in a reliable, stable and monetizable fashion.
Aaron Li, Open RAN market development engineer with Keysight Technologies, called the new approach to RAN “exciting and…disruptive,” but acknowledged a “key issue today is that right now I feel there’s a lack of standardized or agreed testing standards for the industry—things like testing metrics, testing strategies. It’s kind of expected at this stage…I do see the industry working on it and I am optimistic things will improve very soon.”
Also on the T&M side, LitePoint’s Rex Chen, director of business development, pointed out that when different firms deliver a centralized unit, distributed unit and radio unit, “The ability to test…end-to-end functionality and stress testing across different vendors will be a challenge.” Beyond simply testing, he also identified another well-established problem in that when a radio system is disaggregated then reaggregated, who’s in charge?
One ready answer to the question of who figuratively owns the finished product is a system integrator. However, Vodafone Head of Open RAN Paco Martin drew a link between moving from radio vendor lock-in to system integrator lock-in.
“We don’t see the solution for this problem being a system integrator because, in our thinking, we would be moving from…removing being locked in to a certain supplier…to then be locked in to a system integrator doing everything for us. For us, most of the answer to Open RAN are connected to just one word which is collaboration.” Vodafone plans for 30% of its European network footprint to be made up of Open RAN by 2030.
Sharing vs. selling Open RAN learnings
Martin continued: “I think the tricky point is how to make sure that all of us that we are in this ecosystem; supplier, operators, how can we make it happen; how can we have robust processes to ensure that we have the right quality?” To his collaboration point, “We have started with our own Open RAN plans. We are open to share our learnings with other MNOs so that our pain and our efforts become shared with others, and we would expect other operators and suppliers to do the same. Ultimately there must be someone coordinating all these activities and our own view for this is that TIP, who are focused on making the ecosystem happen, can play a key role on that…You need to make sure that we have tools and testing processes that have not been seen so far, and that’s another main point.”
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is an operator-led organization focused on developing deployment-ready Open RAN solutions. The group recently announced a collaboration framework with the O-RAN Alliance meant to more rapidly and with less duplication push O-RAN Alliance compliant products through a testing and validation process. To Martin’s point of sharing learnings throughout an ecosystem, Rakuten Mobile has a lot of them given their work to build a commercialize a 300,000-cell-site strong Open RAN network in Japan. In terms of sharing those learnings, the Rakuten Symphony organization sells that expertise with 1&1 Germany serving as a marquee customer.
Madhukiran Medithe, vice president of network intelligence and analytics department at Rakuten Mobile, said the lessons learned by his company and really more around software interoperability as the vector for achieving the flexibility Open RAN promises. “Yes, of course, there are challenges,” he acknowledged. With “testing, we have to provide the multiple iterations of testing before coming to the field deployment.”
He extended his comments to the cloud platforms that would underlie an Open RAN deployment that goes beyond just open interfaces to a more full-on implementation. He said today’s hyperscaler solutions were developed for things like retail and fintech, not necessarily telecom. “The cloud platform should be robust…That’s what Rakuten has put across” with Symphony. “We come from the telecom DNA and we know how a network should work and how a network should run.”
