importance of open standards - cambridge wireless

Importance of Open Standards

Parallel Wireless, Inc. Proprietary

PRESENTED BY – AMIT GHADGE

2

Senior Director Product Manager, Parallel Wireless

A Telecom industry Professional having 20+ years of experience in various domains like Telecom

and Datacom domain, and in different roles like Engineering, Product Management and Product

Owner. Have worked with well known Telecom/Datacom vendors like Parallel Wireless, Cisco,

Starent, Huawei & CoSystems.

As a Product Manager have managed 5G Packet Core Solution, OpenRAN RIC, CUPS

Gateway, LTE EPC Gateway products like GGSN, PGW, SGW & SAE-GW. Has witnessed

several different evolutions of Mobile Packet Core solution. Has several US Patents in Mobility.

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: Amit Ghadge

Parallel Wireless: www.parallelwireless.com

mailto:[email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amit-ghadge-a162a115/

http://www.parallelwireless.com/


Problem Statement

3


WHAT OPERATORS WANT?

Agility Flexibility Efficiency

Performance Elasticity Cost Reduction

4


Problem Statement - RAN Capex & Opex

Need to address Biggest cost factor for Operators

60%

RAN IS

OF CAPEX AND OPEXit is the most important cost

factor to focus on in telecom

5


OpenRAN Solution

6


Traditional RAN

Baseband

Unit (BBU)

Antennas

Fiber Cabling

Remote Radio

Unit (RRU)

• DAC/ADC

• RF Equipment

RF

CPRI

Proprietary Hardware

Proprietary Hardware

and Software

Proprietary

Interfaces

7

Expensive

Siloed

Proprietory

interfaces

High OpexSlow to

deploy and

change

Vendor

Lock-in

Difficult to

scale

Not 5G

Upgradable


OpenRAN: Disaggregating Hardware and Software

Baseband

Unit (BBU)

Antennas

Fiber Cabling

Remote Radio

Unit (RRU)

• DAC/ADC

• RF Equipment

RF

CPRI

COTS-Based Hardware (SDR) Can be purchased from any ODM/OEM/RAN

hardware vendor

COTS Server and

Proprietary Software with

Virtualized Functions

Open InterfaceAny vendor software can

work on this hardware

8

Reduced

Capex Hw/Sw

Disaggreg

ation

Open

Interfaces

Reduced

OpexAgilie/

Flexible

Avoids

Vendor

Lock-in

5G-

UpgradableScalable


KEY PILLARS OF OPENRAN

Software Defined Openness White Box Cloud Native New Business

Opportunities

TCO Reduction

Intelligence=

Agility

99

New Business

Models


OPENRAN DEPLOYMENT

SCENARIOS

10


EXAMPLE SCENARIO: LEGACY DEPLOYMENT MODEL

CoreS

erv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Transport Network

Proprietary RAN Software & Platforms

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

Pro

prieta

ry

Hard

ware

11


A A A A A A A A A A

EXAMPLE SCENARIO: OPENRAN DEPLOYMENT MODEL

• Let’s take an example scenario where Vendor V1 is supplying virtualized software and ODM/OEM A is supplying hardware

OpenRAN

Hardware from

any ODM/OEM/

RAN Vendor

V1

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

OpenRAN

Software

Core

Transport Network

12



• New ODM/OEM B OpenRAN hardware can work out of the box with Vendor V1 software

A A A A B B A A A A

OpenRAN

Hardware from

any ODM/OEM/

RAN Vendor

V1

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

OpenRAN

Software

Core

Transport Network

13



• Existing ODM/OEM A hardware could be swapped out easily when required with a new hardware either from ODM/OEM B or a newer ODM/OEM C

C B A C B B C A B C

OpenRAN

Hardware from

any ODM/OEM/

RAN Vendor

V1

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

OpenRAN

Software

Core

Transport Network

14



• SP/MNO could replace the OpenRAN software as easily as they did the hardware. Existing OpenRAN hardware continues to work with the new software from Vendor V2

C B A C B B C A B C

OpenRAN

Hardware from

any ODM/OEM/

RAN Vendor

V2

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

OpenRAN

Software

Core

Transport Network

15


EVOLUTION TO 5G OPENRAN

• 3GPP introduced the DU and CU concept as the evolution path toward vRAN

• Introduction of midhaul provides more flexibility for transport options

Distributed and Central Units

16


EXAMPLE SCENARIO: 5G OPENRAN DEPLOYMENT MODEL

With CU, DU & RRU

OpenRAN RU C B A C B B C A B C

V2

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

Serv

ice

OpenRAN CU

Core

Transport Network

OpenRAN DUV2 V4V3

17

All these scenarios are possible only with

Open Standards


• No Vendor Lock-In

• Cloud-Native 5G 4G 3G 2G

• Easy to Deploy, Manage & Upgrade

• Coverage and Capacity

• Deployed on 6 Continents

OPENRAN AND PARALLEL WIRELESS

Why PW

18

New Business

Models

OpenRAN

Deployment

Challenges

Why

OpenRAN?

Vodafone

“Traditional Solutions Not for

Many Business Use Cases• Define and build flexible RAN

solutions: software-defined,

general purpose hardware

• Accelerate path to commercial

deployments 2G/3G/4G

technologies to bring more

people online”

Technology Mix

2025

2018

All G World

OPEN UNIFIED CLOUD-NATIVE SECURED TRUSTED

5G 4G 3G 2G OpenRAN // 5G Core and Edge // Analytics and Network Intelligence


OPENRAN STANDARDS

19


KEY STANDARDS GROUPS FOR OPENRAN

• O-RAN Alliance is a world-wide operator-led effort to drive new levels of openness in the RAN of next generation wireless systems.

• O-RAN Alliance has already started evolving RANs to make them smarter and more open than previous generations by developing reference designs that contain more open, interoperable and standardized interfaces. Crucial to this effort is both whitebox network (physical) elements and software applications.

20


Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) Framework

COTS Hardware

(O-Cloud)

VNFs

External system

providing

enrichment data

to SMO

Non-RT RIC

O2A1 O1Open

Fronthaul

M-Plane

DU

CU-UP

E2 E2E2

E1

F1-C

F1-U

S1/NG

MOBILE NETWORK ARCHITECTURE

Components of 4G/5G Mobile Network – O-RAN ArchitectureLegend

O-RAN Defined Interface

3GPP Defined Interface

Interface out of scope for O-RAN

Core Network

Service

Service

Service

Service

CU-CP

Near-RT RICR

U

Scope o

f O

-RA

N

21


TELECOM INFRA PROJECT (TIP)

22

The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is a global community of

companies and organizations that are driving

infrastructure solutions to advance global connectivity.


TIP is more deployment and

execution focused; they encourage

Plug fests and live deployments in

the field.

• Enable Open RAN ecosystem

• Ensure different vendor’s software

and hardware equipment works with

each other

• Use case productization

• Trials, field testing and deployment

TIP

O-RAN Alliance develops, drives and

enforces standards to ensure that

equipment from multiple vendors

inter-operate with each other.

• It creates standards where none are

available, e.g., Fronthaul

specifications

• It creates profiles for interoperability

testing where standards are available,

e.g., X2 interface

O-RAN Alliance

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN O-RAN ALLIANCE AND TIP

23


OPENRAN: DISAGGREGATING HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Baseband

Unit (BBU)

Antennas

Fiber Cabling

Remote Radio

Unit (RRU)

• DAC/ADC

• RF Equipment

RF

CPRI

COTS-Based Hardware (SDR) Can be purchased from any ODM/OEM/RAN

hardware vendor

COTS Server and

Proprietary Software with

Virtualized Functions

Open InterfaceAny vendor software can

work on this hardware

24

Reduced

Capex Hw/Sw

Disaggreg

ation

Open

Interfaces

Reduced

OpexAgilie/

Flexible

Avoids

Vendor

Lock-in

5G-

UpgradableScalable

All OpenRAN benefits are

possible only with Open

Standards

importance of open standards - cambridge wireless

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