4G changes life, 5G changes society, so what will 6G change?

The answer is: 6G will change the telecommunications industry.

In fact, the original intention of this article is to talk about vRAN, which will change the telecommunications industry. It is just a "gimmick" to take advantage of 6G. There is no necessary connection between vRAN and 6G. The two only overlap slightly in development time. Currently, vRAN is developing in full swing overseas (it is struggling in China due to some reasons), and its influence is very far-reaching, so it is necessary for you to understand vRAN.

vRAN refers to the virtualized wireless access network. Currently, the wireless access network RAN ​​of 4G/5G cellular mobile communication systems is mostly built with proprietary black box equipment, usually manufactured by telecom system equipment manufacturers such as Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, ZTE, and Samsung. Although the RAN network is split into RRU/RRH/AAU, DU, CU/BBU and other unit components, these devices are usually integrated hardware and software boxes, and their external interfaces are also private, which cannot achieve mixed networking of unit components from different manufacturers. The functions of black box devices are also proprietary. It is difficult to upgrade the software of these 4G boxes purchased in the early days to support 5G functions, because most of them use ASIC dedicated integrated circuits with solidified processing logic. If a certain ASIC chip does not support certain 5G mandatory protocols or algorithms, the device cannot support 5G functions. If operators want to build 5G networks, they must re-purchase new equipment that supports 5G functions and replace old equipment to install it in the network. Therefore, each network upgrade will cause a batch of old equipment to be wasted.

At the same time, once an operator chooses a manufacturer's equipment, it will be locked in by that manufacturer, and future component function upgrades and feature activations will also be completely dependent on that manufacturer. Since network functions are implemented using ASIC chips, the network protocol must be carefully designed before the equipment is manufactured, and it cannot be easily modified afterwards, otherwise the manufactured equipment will be forced to be scrapped, which is unacceptable.

Operators hope to dismantle these black box devices of the wireless access network, so that each component can be purchased from different manufacturers, follow standard interfaces, and be able to interconnect with each other. This is O-RAN. Operators also hope to further decouple the hardware and software of RAN equipment, purchase hardware and software separately, and realize the functions of RAN components by purchasing general-purpose architecture computers as hardware platforms and running dedicated software on them. This is vRAN.

O-RAN is not necessarily vRAN. Although O-RAN has achieved component disassembly and interoperability between components from different manufacturers, it does not emphasize that the components themselves must achieve hardware and software decoupling. Compared with O-RAN, vRAN focuses more on hardware and software decoupling. Of course, the interfaces between the various components of vRAN are usually open and can be interoperable with different manufacturers.

Currently, the driving force behind operators trying to adopt vRAN technology is that they believe that doing so can fully break free from the lock-in of traditional telecommunications equipment manufacturers, improve the utilization rate of hardware equipment, reduce the network's OPEX operating costs, enhance network flexibility, and shorten the cycle for developing and deploying new functions.

We believe that the greatest value of vRAN lies in its ability to truly realize software radio. The concept of software radio has been proposed for many years, but it was not until the emergence of vRAN that we saw hope for large-scale implementation. As the name suggests, software radio means that radio communication functions are defined by software rather than hardware devices with fixed functions.

Of course, the current vRAN development stage is still in its early stages. In particular, the current vRAN's main work is focused on the network side, and the software radio on the terminal side has not yet started. The terminal's radio network access equipment is still implemented using ASIC chips. However, we have reason to believe that once software radio is effectively developed on the network side, terminal devices that support software radio will soon catch up.

Ultimately, once software radio is implemented on both the network side and the terminal side, the mobile communications industry will undergo a huge change, and the radio spectrum, an important communication resource, will be more flexibly and fully utilized. vRAN vendors can revise the communication protocol at any time according to user needs, as long as the devices at both ends of the communication are upgraded and adapted synchronously. The industry will no longer rely on standardization organizations (such as 3GPP) to formulate and revise unified communication protocols (especially the interface between the network and the terminal - the air interface protocol) based on lengthy and complicated processes.

As the hardware and software of communication equipment are decoupled, communication hardware manufacturers will focus on providing radio terminal module platforms and radio network equipment platforms with universal architecture, systematic specifications and open interfaces, which may build network equipment based on universal COTS computer clusters; communication software manufacturers will focus on providing communication protocol software that can run on radio modules on the terminal side and radio equipment on the network side; radio infrastructure operators will focus on investing in the construction and maintenance of radio network infrastructure, such as antennas, RF transceivers, fronthaul, midhaul and backhaul networks, baseband cloud servers, etc. At this time, the business model of the telecommunications operation industry will undergo tremendous changes compared to now.

For public mobile communication networks, infrastructure operators may no longer need to directly face end users, but instead provide facility rental services to communication software vendors, who will then face end users. For enterprise-owned (private) wireless communication networks, the enterprise invests in and builds and maintains its network infrastructure, purchases communication software from communication software vendors, and manages end users of the proprietary (private) radio network itself.

It is somewhat similar to the current cloud computing model (IDC infrastructure provider - public cloud vendor - end user). Of course, current public cloud vendors will also build and operate part of the IDC infrastructure themselves. So after software radio becomes popular, it is very likely that communication software vendors will also invest in building and operating part of the radio network infrastructure.

Eventually, a handful of communications software manufacturers will replace the current traditional mobile communications network operators and become public mobile communications network giants spanning many countries around the world. They will realize the integration of technology research and development and network operations in the field of mobile communications. 3GPP will lose its value by then, and 6G will naturally no longer exist. The evolution cycle of mobile communication networks will be reduced from the current 10 years to 10 days by then.