O-RAN and 5G Private Networks

In Conversation with Oleg Neyolov, Head of Mobile Core & 5G Global Technology Center Customer Experience, Global Delivery & Support Hewlett Packard Enterprise

How Open Source
Holds the Key to the Future

WHY O-RAN?

The O-RAN (Open RAN) Alliance is driving the evolution of Radio Access Networks around a core focus on intelligence and openness. It aims to drive the mobile industry towards an ecosystem of innovative, multi-vendor, interoperable, and autonomous RAN, with reduced cost, improved performance and greater agility. Several global organizations are a part of the Alliance as it redefine the 5G landscape.

5G and O-RAN have emerged as being complementary to each other. This is because at the core of the 5G philosophy is the standardization and simplification of interfaces between functions. Adhering to these goals is really helping open up the market to a lot of new players for various network functions, as these interfaces are now standardized for us to potentially take one specific set and use it for all network functions across deployments.

Challenges

Earlier, it used to be quite difficult to get into the market because a lot of the things were not really standardized enough and the implementation of solutions from multiple OEMs was a challenge. You could take either everything from one partner, or run the risk of overruns trying to fit it all together. You could not pick and choose individual components of the 4G solution because there were just too many vendor specific implementations. 5G implementations today are attempting to avoid this scenario, and there are several instances of success that come to mind. We can also now look to create a true best-of-breed solution. And because we are driving a best-of-breed solution, this necessitates an open run.

O-RAN for the Future

Whether you are a client who wants to undertake this integrated system themselves or a system integrator who wants to use the ‘best-of-breed’ approach and pick and choose which 5G network functionalities to use, you will at some point, need to navigate the radio access network.

Prior to O-RAN, the only option was to go to one of the big vendors, who would often be unwilling to support you unless the entire network was from their stables. O-RAN, therefore, is enabling the customers to break this dependency on a single point, democratizing the technology stack in the marketplace. This, in turn, is propelling the overall growth of 5G and private 5G networks.

Seamless Connectivity, low latency, and lightning fast response times.

5G's ultra-low latency capabilities, along with greater reliability and slice switching.

100% connectivity at all times prevents devices from crashing uncontrollably.

Unmatched results across visibility, connectivity, and control

5G Private Networks : Redefining the Future

Several global companies are already leveraging Private LTE networks. The emergence of private 5G is set to take this to a whole new level in terms of seamless connectivity, low latency, and lighting fast response times. Private 5G networks are also making their mark as the key enabler for industrial automation, besides driving the use of AR on the factory floor for better repair and maintenance outcomes. 5G’s ultra-low latency capabilities, along with greater reliability and slice-switching, provides a guarantee for unmatched service quality. Leveraging this automatic slice management feature, we recently undertook a demonstration with one of our CSP partners.

The use case demonstrated a remote-controlled robot, and involved simulating various kinds of interference and networking difficulties.
Not only was the 5G private network able to self-heal, enabling the robot to move and reprovision as warranted, but the use of slice management also helped guarantee the quality of service. We were able to avoid any kind of interruptions, ensuring 100% connectivity at all times to prevent the robot from crashing uncontrollably.

This technology demonstrator, therefore, serves to highlight the potential for transforming factory floor operations and other
real life applications with hitherto unmatched results across visibility, connectivity, and control.

The Role of O-RAN:
Driving Interoperability

ORAN has the benefit of independence. However, timing constraints continues to be a challenge. Customers want to make their 5G decisions now. Most of them have already made their choices, while a large number are on the verge of a decision. While a lot of them started out with the best-of-breed approach, a lot of them ended up going with the big OEMs who leveraged a combination of deep discounts and existing market positions to corner a major segment.

It might be that these players are preying on the customer's fears about the integration risks inherent with any multi-vendor solution. While it is still possible to stick to a best-of-breed approach, the possibility of compatibility issues cannot be ruled out altogether. This, in turn, can affect the final implementation timelines, a luxury for most customers looking to adopt 5G. I feel that this is a major challenge for the O-RAN Alliance.

They need to ensure the reliability and maturity of their offerings to earn and retain customer trust in the marketplace. Guaranteed interoperability should be the focus and foundation, rather than just a buzzword.

Besides guaranteed interoperability, I feel that we should be focusing more on the actual maturity of the O-RAN participants. There are several small-size companies that already started building very innovative solutions. Some of them are being tested, while others have just been discussed with consumers.

These interesting new solutions have some really very attractive features that ensure better performance vis-a-vis the classic run players.
But if you are considering running a production deployment, they obviously don't have yet the capability to go there, yet.

Striking a balance

So we are left with a classic chicken and egg situation, where we are talking about the promises there, the member companies do not yet have the credibility for running enterprise deployments for large customers.

Here is where the private 5G market comes in to bail out the O-RAN initiative. This is because the deployment for the private 5G networks are smaller and simpler.

So, on one hand, getting micro-scalable solutions for these specific deployment use cases is easier than going for full network deployments for major telecom service operators.

ORAN and 5G have really opened up the market for collaborations, and I think the essential thing for the industry to do here is to take decisive and innovative steps instead of seeking the comfort of legacy wisdom. Only then will we see the emergence of a whole new class of market leaders, organizations that will define the technology pathways of the future.

Creating a Roadmap: From Leveraging Existing Capabilities to Ensuring Best Practices

Engineering service providers have a special role in the current ecosystem in that they have a depth of knowledge in working with end customers across diverse verticals. This allows them to be aware of the specific use cases for that industry. Also, the reach and the relationships with customers to really get an end-to-end view of what they need is a major enabler here.

Let me cite an instance. For a 5G agnostic solution, customers often go directly to an engineering services provider and ask them for an end-to-end solution for their particular business case, say automating their manufacturing plant. This allows them to directly move to the implementation of a private network, without having to rely on a pure-play 5G provider.

I feel that this approach represents significant opportunities for a growing collaborative economy across the board.

In the present scenario, organizations should be focusing on simplifying the operating environments for customers versus, instead of concentrating on legacy service provider-led deployments. While the emerging approach to 5G may appear to be novel for some enterprise users, they need not be over-bothered, choosing instead to focus on their investments for getting their staff up to speed with the latest technology.

Another key challenge stems from the fact that new age containerized architecture is quite fragmented. As an organization, we are looking at a diverse set of emerging platforms for addressing this scenario, and I would recommend customers to consider carefully about the platforms that they are going to implement in their environment.

Moving to 100% open source may prove to be the game changer here in terms of addressing the pitfalls of fragmentation.