In order to seize the business opportunities brought by 5G services such as AR/VR and immersive experience, operators need scalability, low delay, high performance, large capacity and new business models. Therefore, one of the key areas of investment is the radio access network (RAN), because data must be processed with ultra-low latency in the place closest to customers in order to provide 5G services.
As a leading operator in the field of Open RAN, Vodafone has been continuously investing in many places in the UK and actively promoting the Open RAN ecosystem since it was put forward on 20 16. As early as June 5438+ 10, 2022, Vodafone announced the opening of the first 5G Open RAN site in the UK, which means that Open RAN technology is used to carry real-time customer traffic for the first time in Hong Jizhan, UK, and it will be one of the largest wireless access networks in the world.
Located in Bath, UK, this network is the first of 2,500 5G and 4G Open RANs that Vodafone promised to launch by 2027, and it is also an important step to support the British government to accelerate the development of OpenRAN ecosystem. It is understood that the British government is investing in this technology through a diversified strategy of 250 million pounds, making the British network more flexible, stable and secure, and bringing huge benefits of 5G to the public and enterprises.
In this project, Dell, NEC, Samsung and Fenghe are responsible for jointly building the Open RAN network, while Capgemini Engineering and Shide Technology are responsible for integration and interoperability testing.
Among them, Samsung provides wireless access network (vRAN) solutions, as well as technology, products and integration support; Dell provides open hardware servers; NEC provides RU units; Fenghe is responsible for the life cycle management of workload, automation, scheduling and network functions of Open RAN CU/DU; Capgemini Engineering and Shide Technology provide testing and integration services in Vodafone Laboratories to ensure interoperability of multi-vendor ecosystems. Once the technology and suppliers are verified to meet the Open RAN standard, the deployment of equipment becomes easier.
Paul Miller believes that Open RAN is the key to the future 5G vRAN. As a provider of cloud infrastructure technology, Fenghe invested heavily in Open RAN, and participated in the open operation of Vodafone from beginning to end, providing a distributed cloud native platform for Vodafone's new generation Open RAN to run Open RAN applications.
With the help of Open RAN technology, mobile operators can obtain more interoperable hardware and software, thus making network operation more cost-effective. Vodafone announced that it is using Open RAN technology to cover mobile communications in rural areas that are difficult to cover in Britain. At present, it has introduced 4G in seven new regions, including Morehampton, Lifton, Selborne, Pendine, Halkyn, Bradfield and Middleton-in-Teesdale, which are the first regions in Devon, Hampshire, Wales, Yorkshire and Durham to obtain Open RAN technology. However, with the maturity of Open RAN ecosystem and technology, more sites will be considered for deployment. These additional sites may be located in more complex environments with high network traffic, such as transportation hubs and dense urban environments.
When talking about why Open RAN technology is favored, Paul Miller said that Open RAN will promote open architecture to provide agility, introduce diversified combinations of suppliers/ecosystems, introduce new services, and expand enterprise edge cloud to add new 5G network services. Mainstream application scenarios will promote new application scenarios and increase the demand for high performance and ultra-low latency. Such as remote edge applications (Industry 4.0, Augmented Reality, etc. ) requires ultra-reliable low-latency communication. This will enable service providers to flexibly introduce these application scenarios and services, and gain great flexibility in terms of time, methods and suppliers. This also helps to improve operational efficiency by adopting cloud-based or separation methods.
According to the comparative analysis of the operating costs of Open RAN and traditional physical RAN for 5G applications by Mei Sen, a leading telecommunications, media and technology management consulting company, it is pointed out that the TCO reduction is very significant, which is enough to prove the rationality of switching to Open RAN (compared with traditional physical RAN, the TCO is reduced by 22%; At the same time, the commercialization of open wireless units and the further optimization of CPU speed can reduce the TCO of O-RAN in the whole collection by 30% to 35%).
Therefore, more and more enterprises realize that compared with the traditional equipment method, deploying new modern income applications (Internet of Things, Industrial Internet of Things, factory automation, enterprise edge computing, self-driving cars, etc.). ) More income can be generated by using Open RAN technology.
Paul Miller admits that in Fenghe Studio, Fenghe provides cloud platform technology to run the virtualization function of wireless access network. Fenghe's cloud platform technology is based on open source Starling X. The world's first separated (i.e. open RAN and virtualization) 5G commercial network completed by Vodafone officially runs on Fenghe's cloud platform technology, and Fenghe strives to become a leading provider of separated and open 5G vRAN cloud platform.
As we all know, O-RAN Alliance is a global community composed of mobile service providers and technology providers, and it is an organization that promotes the development of Open RAN. As of April 28th, O-RAN alliance has gained great attraction in the world. The operators are 3 1, including China Unicom, China Telecom, China Mobile, AT& etc. T, Vodafone, Verizon, T-Mobile and other operators; There are 303 contributors and academic contributors to O-RAN Alliance, including ZTE, Nokia, Xinhua III, AsiaInfo, Xilinx, Qualcomm, Samsung, Lenovo, Intel, Fujitsu, Amazon and other enterprises.
Attachment: 3 1 operator O-RAN alliance members:
303 contributors and academic contributors of O-RAN Alliance:
Expert introduction
Little paul miller.
As the chief technology officer, Paul Miller is responsible for the technology strategy of Fenghe Company. He has more than 30 years of leadership experience in telecommunications and advanced technologies for large enterprises and successful start-ups. Currently, he focuses on Fenghe's edge virtualization and AI solutions, including its market-leading 5G cloud products based on Starling X.
Before joining Fenghe, he was the chief technology officer of GENBAND. He has led the architecture and development of various switching, IMS, IP media, call control and Web application solutions, and his achievements have been applied to many first-class operators around the world.
In the past eight years, he has focused on OpenStack, SDN and NFV automation technologies, including multi-site and cloud infrastructure operation, multi-layer CSP VNF deployment and important NFV patent development. His contribution to career development has helped many communication service providers around the world to create new revenue channels and greatly reduce operating costs.
Note: The original text was first published on the official WeChat of the communication industry network.
How was the first commercial 5G Open RAN site opened in Europe?