Not only Huawei for 5G networks, the O-Ran Alliance is turbo-charged
What is the O-Ran Alliance, a consortium of telephone companies for the standardization of open Ran (Radio Access Networks), and who is part of it
The fight for Huawei's dominance on 5G networks also passes through the O-Ran Alliance.
In fact, in February 2018 the O-Ran alliance was born to promote the adoption of an open approach to networking, software and virtualization within global wireless networks, especially now that 5G technology is upon us.
Geopolitics played an important role in the push for open RAN.
The US has pushed its allies to keep Huawei out of their 5G networks, describing the Chinese company as a security risk and arguing that once its equipment is integrated into a network, it will take years to eliminate it. This is why open Ran technologies are advancing.
Since 2018, the O-Ran Alliance has made progress in making Radio Access Networks (Ran) effectively open, intelligent, virtualized and fully interoperable.
Here are objectives and members of the O-Ran Alliance.
THE O-RAN ALLIANCE
Founded in February 2018, the O-Ran Alliance has concluded its first two years of activity, making important progress in the standardization of open and intelligent Ran (Radio Access Networks).
Radio access networks consist of a variety of equipment and software that enable connectivity and data transmission between the two ends of a mobile network: users' devices such as smartphones on the one hand and the core network consisting of base stations and other infrastructures on the other.
For 4G networks, telecom equipment manufacturers such as Huawei and Ericsson group their base stations with proprietary RAN equipment. The Open Ran initiative, by contrast, aims to develop open access standards for interoperability that will allow new and smaller players to build radio access network equipment.
ALSO TIM AND VODAFONE AMONG THE MEMBERS
O-Ran Alliance was founded by AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Docomo and Orange. Its structure soon evolved into that of a typical standardization organization: led by telecommunications companies ("members") and supported by over 230 suppliers and academic and research institutes ("contributors") who guide the definition and implementation of O-Ran technology. So far, most of the tier 1 and tier 2 telecom companies in the world are already members, while most of the providers involved in the communications industry contribute.
Today O-Ran Alliance represents the leadership of 27 major carriers that join forces to make the Ran sector truly open, intelligent, virtualized and fully interoperable.
HUAWEI GREAT ABSENT
The biggest absence from the supplier community is Huawei itself.
As CorCom pointed out , “the major European suppliers of telecommunications equipment, Ericsson and Nokia, both support Open Ran. Ericsson, in particular, has been a member of the O-Ran Alliance since February 2019 while Nokia joined the Open Ran Policy Coalition in May and announced that it intends to incorporate the technology into its portfolio next year ”.
THE IMPETUS TO THE OPEN RAN
“US pressure on many countries to ban Huawei and ZTE and promote Open Ran is fueling the momentum of Open Ran. We have clearly seen an acceleration this year, ”Stephane Teral, chief analyst at LightCounting Market Research, toldNikkei Asia . “There is strong open Ran momentum fueled by European service providers such as Orange and Vodafone. Orange in the Central Republic of Africa, Vodafone in the Republic of Congo and Mozambique; in general, those networks would go to Huawei and ZTE ”.
BOOM OF OPEN RAN EQUIPMENT IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS
Furthermore, also CorCom , highlights that “the sales of Open Ran (Radio access network) equipment will grow at double-digit rates in the next five years, until the end of 2024, with a total expenditure of 5 billion dollars. These are the estimates provided by the market research company Dell'Oro Group; total sales of radio equipment such as macro and small cells will reach 1 million units ”.
STEPS FORWARD
The latest entry into the O-Ran Alliance was made by the Japanese operator Rakuten Mobile in November . As Repubblica writes “now, the Alliance has designed reliable and functioning networks without basing them on the closed products of the four dominant suppliers. A “Lego brick” system means that dozens of new global suppliers guarantee a piece of architecture, without this imaginative puzzle penalizing the quality of the transmissions ”.
“Open Ran Alliance is a solid and credible project. Today, however, it does not only include telecommunications operators. It has opened up to actors like Cisco (networking) to Samsung, who have strengthened it. The meaning of all this is clear ”, professor Antonio Capone of the Politecnico di Milano, an expert on the subject, told Repubblica . “The old geopolitical balances are in question. And the traditional logic of building networks gives way to a disaggregated, freer model. In all this, the Open Ran networks work well, as evidenced by the recent comforting tests of the Japanese operator Rakuten Mobile. "
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/non-solo-huawei-per-le-reti-5g-mette-il-turbo-la-o-ran-alliance/ on Sun, 29 Nov 2020 05:26:17 +0000.