The Open RAN RIC will bring CI/CD processes to telecom
Although 5G still has a long tail of innovation left as it advanced to 5G Advanced with Release 18, there’s already material work happening focused on framing what its predecessor, 6G, will look like. One apparent glimpse of 6G is coming from work being done in the Open RAN space, where hardware and software are disaggregated and cloud platforms distribute intelligent decision-making throughout the radio access network.
While work around the RAN Intelligent Controller and actionable intelligence is in its early stages, there are already questions about how operators manage the complexity of pushing software updates from multiple vendors in an organized, productive manner. But, in order for Open RAN to live up to its fullest potential, these CI/CD pipelines have to be ported from the world of IT and cloud over to the world of wireless.
Discussing the promise of the RIC in the context of 6G, Viavi Solutions Director of RF and WIreless Architecture Ian Wong called it “a great first step in really leveraging data, standardized interfaces, to ingest that data, to train for really increased network intelligence. We’re just scratching the surface there.”
He also called out the RIC’s ability to support various xApps and rApps that could be built by subject matter or vertical experts and brought to life in the RAN–if the goal was to deploy a private network tuned to the needs of a factory, vertically-focused companies could supply the app while the operators supplied the network.
“We’re just scratching the surface,” he said. “We really didn’t have that much of a grasp of AI when 5G started…Now we have this runway, right. I want to say four or five year runway of really learning and understanding how do we infuse AI and machine learning across the network.”
In considering how the CI/CD aspect of Open RAN could apply forward to 6G, Keysight Technologies Director of 6G Marketing Sarah LaSelva hit on what’s seen as a key application of 6G–digital twins. She creating virtual replicas of networks is “just hugely important in this. The other thing to think about with all of the softwarization, cloudification, virtualization of the RAN, if you look at digital twins, it gives you a way to create an extremely accurate replica of your network in software to where you can actually be testing those new features on something that’s going to behave like your network without actually taking your network down.”
Getting from Open RAN to AI-native 6G has wireless workforce implications
LaSelva hits on the important idea that CI/CD as applied to telecom networks will also require continuous testing and continuous assurance; this also gets at how the test and measurement discipline will evolve in tandem with 6G. “I think that having kind of that parity between a virtualized environment, a digital twin of your network, is going to be just a very, very fundamental piece of getting this working. If you’re making all of these changes in software, you need to have some way to validate that that change not only worked as intended in your piece of the puzzle but also worked for the entire network.”
In a multi-vendor disaggregated network environment, a software push from one vendor could potentially disrupt the machinations of other vendors elsewhere in the radio system. “Building out more accurate digital twins, in my opinion, is going to be key so you can do that testing without taking your network offline,” LaSelva said. “The interdependencies are just way too complex and add way too much risk if you don’t have a good way to solidly understand what those changes are doing. “
Wong contextualized the long-term need for IT and AI skills among operators to make CI/CD and network automation processes work as a looming workforce challenge. “If you think about it, acronyms like CI/CD were not understood by wireless people three years ago.” Effectively using software, data intelligence, machine learning and other tools will be a hallmark of successful, modern carrier organizations. “It takes one mistake by an AI on the network to really erode the trust of operators and the whole industry on this concept.”
For more from Wong and LaSelva, check out this webinar on the problems 6G is meant to solve. Download this free report for a deeper dive into the 6G outlook.
