Open RAN architecture Bying patterns 2025

#News(IoTStack) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]

A series of start-ups, exemplar operators and smaller existing equipment vendors are all pushing different varieties of open approaches to the 5G Radio Access Network (RAN).

But today a fully Open RAN platform is a long way off and there are many obstacles in its path, not least of which is the entrenched position and heavy R&D investment of the major OEMs. There are also risks seen by some operators of partnering with an immature and fragmented open solution. But the driver that makes open RAN irresistible is the need for a more competitive multi-vendor approach to drive down costs.

This report lays down a number of scenarios of how open systems will prise open the RAN market – with some adoption likely to some open APIs during 2020, and some scenarios not unfurling until deep into 2025.

In either case, much of the momentum will come from new classes of operators and vendor, addressing under-served areas including the indoor enterprise and industrial IoT.

And these greenfield initiatives will have the opportunity to build a more open, WiFi-like ecosystem based on the open specifications which are being driven aggressively by major operators, via organizations like Facebook TIP and the Linux Foundation-hosted ORAN Alliance.

As we say, the main reason is price. Rethink’s projected deployment cost of a 5G macro cell, shows pricing will fall by 50% from now until 2022 if it is built around an open architecture, whereas it will only fall 30% if it is built in the traditional way.

Ran Research found all this by interviewing 76 tier one operators about their detailed plans for RAN deployments to 2025, and focused in particular on the use of new or open architectures.

These operators say that the top drivers which push them towards open architectures in the RAN are total cost of ownership (TCO), driving price competition, an attempt to wrest control of the technology agenda from vendors, and the desire to access a wider base of innovation than just five major OEMs.

Rethink has laid out 4 distinctly different potential scenarios in detail, showing what will happen in certain architectures gain leadership at key times.

A convergence of commercial imperatives will drive openness and interoperability. Some of these will mainly relate to pressures on the hard-pressed MNOs, to deliver 5G profitably; while others will relate to the new entrants which want to add mobile connectivity to their own business models in the enterprise or cloud.

Read More..