What is Open RAN?

Open RAN is an industry standard designed to power the radio access equipment of telecommunications cellular networks, particularly relevant to the buildout of 5G infrastructure. The role of the radio access network (RAN) is to connect base stations, which transmit and receive traffic from terminals such as mobile phones and laptops, and provide connectivity to the operator's core network.

In the absence of standards, wireless equipment vendors don’t have to consider whether their RAN equipment will interoperate with other vendors’ equipment when designing their RAN equipment. So, in order to make the network run smoothly, telecom companies, and increasingly enterprises, are forced to deal with just one company when they want to deploy a licensed wireless network. This vendor tends to go with the high bidder because it limits competition between equipment vendors for individual RAN elements and also limits flexibility in network design.

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What is Open RAN?

Open RAN is a collaboration between equipment manufacturers and telecom companies in different working groups to solve this interoperability problem by creating standards. As long as the equipment meets the open RAN standards, it should be compatible with equipment produced by any other vendor whose equipment also meets the standards. By not having to rely on one vendor for all their equipment, operators and enterprises have more opportunities to find the best price for each piece of equipment.

Open RAN standards will also be available to software developers, who can write innovative features and services at any time to quickly respond to user needs.

Virtualized network elements

The open RAN architecture virtualizes parts of the cellular network that were traditionally handled by specialized hardware and software. Time-sensitive functions such as QoS management, handover control, and load balancing are handled by the RAN Intelligent Controller Near Real-Time Layer (RIC near-RT), while policy management and analysis are performed in the RIC non-real-time layer. Similarly, the virtualized functions of radio frequency and baseband processing are provided by the distributed unit (DU) and remote radio unit (RRU) layers.

These features are designed to provide the core functionality required by all cellular networks while providing the opportunity to mix and match the actual hardware used; as long as a device complies with O-RAN standards, it can interoperate with other O-RAN compliant devices.

Who is developing Open RAN?

The O-RAN Alliance is the largest group working on Open RAN and is supported by all equipment vendors. It has released RIC, DU and RRU specifications. The Telecom Infra project has also identified some specification requirements with its TIP OpenRAN standard, and the Small Cell Foundation has also released some specifications. All initiatives have roughly the same goals.

Why is Open RAN important to 5G?

Telecom companies have long lamented high infrastructure costs, a problem that has become more severe with the rush to deploy 5G equipment, much of which has a shorter range than previous-generation mobile networks. 5G networks therefore require many more base stations to provide universal coverage. That doesn't come cheap, so the big telecoms are eager to support any move that can reduce their capital expenditures.

Open RAN and private 5G

Open RAN is a boon for enterprises interested in private 5G and LTE. One of the main barriers to mass adoption of private licensed wireless networks is cost, and open RAN could change that equation enough for more enterprises to consider such networks. Estimates of the size of the private 5G/LTE market generally agree that the industry will rise dramatically over the next five years. A recent estimate from Juniper Research says that annual spending on private cellular networks will more than double to nearly $12 billion over the next two years, and the emergence of open RAN could be a big part of that.