ORAN Is 'The Future,' Could Take Different Forms

“Open RAN is the future,” said Sidd Chenumolu, Dish Network vice president-technology development: “We see a lot of trials and proofs of concept happening this year and hopefully many of them will graduate to production next year. There’s a lot of good work that has happened.” Dish is building an ORAN-based stand-alone 5G network.

“The shift to open RAN will definitely take some time to happen, but I believe it’s a given considering how complicated mobile networks are becoming,” said Phil Solis, IDC research director-connectivity and smartphone semiconductors.

Carriers have a lot invested in their current networks and can achieve much via RAN, said Gordon Mansfield, AT&T vice president-mobility and access architecture. “When you start looking at open front-haul, and you start to look at mixing and matching radios … the operators all have large invested bases,” he said: “We’re not going to suddenly rip everything out and, overnight, it’s all open, mix-and-match, anything you want. Will that happen over time? Absolutely.” Network virtualization “with open on top of that starts to add all kinds of interesting capabilities,” especially advanced capabilities coming in 2027 and beyond, Mansfield said.

“This industry is built on open interfaces and openness in general,” said Karri Kuoppamaki, T-Mobile vice president-technology development and strategy. “Any development that increases openness is obviously a good one,” he said. “It is early days,” he said: “There’s work to do still” on ORAN, “it’s not fully baked.” Networks will likely move to ORAN at a different pace, he said. To succeed, ORAN “has to solve actual business issues” and work better than current networks, he said.

The GSM Association recently polled carriers on what they wanted from 6G, said Peter Jarich, head-intelligence. Their top answers were security, openness and low cost, he said. “The focus on open is going to be front and center for operators,” he said. Think about ORAN “in terms of spectrum, making sure that the open RAN radios support all the new bands we want to support," he said. For ORAN “to really get the attention at the highest levels … it needs to be linked to making money as well as saving money,” he said.

The move from 5G to 6G depends on open networks, said Andre Fuetsch, chief technology officer at AT&T Services. “Disaggregation and interoperability will continue to be vital in realizing the full potential of a 5G world,” he said. “AT&T is conducting live trials leveraging ORAN and working to open up its capabilities." A&T’s network saw a 40% data traffic increase from the previous year during the COVID-19 pandemic, with uplink connections are now growing faster than downlink, he said. “As the number of sensors and devices grow the pool of data will only get larger and more difficult to manage,” he said.

6G Notebook

Nokia considers keeping a single “global standard” for 6G the biggest priority, said Nishant Batra, chief strategy and technology officer. “It helps the consumer, it helps the society and it helps the global economy,” he said. Security is also important, he said. Today in 5G, we’re seeing 4K and 8K video, but in 5G-advanced, in 2023 “you will get the fully immersive user experience -- extended reality will be very much an important application,” he said. In 6G “we’re talking about holographic and this is a huge, huge change in terms of the traffic” on the network, Batra said: “Then we can move to a larger scale -- vertical farming, real-time sensors, drones flying over it,” he said. “We’re talking about a paradigm shift between 5G, 5G advanced and 6G,” he said. The first 6G standard is likely in 2028, with deployment as early as 2029, he said.

The transition from 4G to 5G has been fast, with more than 275 providers worldwide investing in 5G and 175 deploying, said John Smee, Qualcomm Technologies vice president-engineering. Some 3.8 billion 5G smartphones are expected to ship by 2024, he said. With 6G likely to be deployed around 2030, “now is the time for … foundational research,” he said. Smee suggested industry focus on “scalable network architecture, disaggregation and virtualization, the role of cloud and edge and … new compute and communications topologies for relays and mesh.” New radio designs and a focus on new bands are also important, as is increased network resiliency, he said. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will “foundationally change how the networks adapt, how devices adapt and what sort of information is exchanged between devices and between devices and the network,” he said.