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A Short History of RAN

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I think a lot of people see new technology and wonder why the carriers don’t adopt it right away. I get asked that all the time. The reality is it takes time to bring something to market. It has to be tested so that the bugs can be worked out and then gain system acceptance before it can be deployed on a mass scale. This takes time, sometimes a year. 

That is why carriers rely heavily on larger OEMs. It’s because they will work on something until it works as close to what the carrier wants as possible. They charge more because they stick with it until release. Do they always succeed? Of course not, but that’s why the win rate is high! 

It’s not like the RAN hasn’t evolved in the past 20 years. Think about what the systems were like 20 years ago. Also, think about which systems out there still operate the same, or very close, to how it was 20 years ago. When you think back, it’s fun to see how much evolution came about.

This all started when someone asked me when Open RAN would be ready for carriers. I responded by saying, more or less, that it depends on what the expectation is. Rakuten says it works but for mostly data. For the carriers in the US, they want to be sure it’s going to work. That takes time to get through the process. I’ll talk more about that below. 

The other thing to think about is how public safety radio networks work today. It’s not a far cry from what we had 20 years ago. They rely on maybe P25 or TETRA networks to communicate. The reason for this is because they work and they’re reliable. Granted you have FirstNet, but that is for data and it rides on the AT&T network and dedicated priority spectrum.  I would bet municipalities that use FirstNet have a priority voice system, like TETRA or P25, that they rely on in emergencies.

First, some clarifications: 

So let’s go down the RAN evolution rabbit hole shall we? If you don’t want to, then jump down to the Open RAN section. 

First, we have to deal with the acronyms. Here is a quick synopsis:

  • BBU is a BaseBand unit, the interface between the core/backhaul and the radios in the RAN.
  • CRAN means Concentrated RAN, which is not C-RAN (Cloud RAN).
  • C-RAN is Cloud RAN and that means that the RAN will be controlled by BBU functions in the Cloud. That means the Cloud will be running the BBU application.
  • DRAN is a Distributed RAN, see below.
  • MIMO is Multiple In, Multiple Out, referring to an integrated radio & antenna that can transmit and receive simultaneously for network and throughput improvements.
  • Open RAN is a model where the RAN can be any radio controlled by a remote source.
  • PIM means Passive InterModulation.
  • RAN is the Radio Access Network which means the radios and antennas out at the sites.
  • UE is User Equipment.
  • vRAN is Virtualized RAN.

As you read on, remember I am talking about the RAN, not devices (UEs) or cores or backhauls. I am trying to make that clear because the first thing everyone will say is, “Do you remember the first iPhone?”, and I do. It was on AT&T’s system exclusively and it helped speed up the 3G data (1xRTT & 1xEV-DO) revolution in their RAN. I want to focus on the RAN which Most people tend to overlook unless there is a mass deployment happening.

Early RAN Evolution

Most people forget at one time there were just radios. I mean, think of public safety and paging. We just attached radios to controllers. In the early days, we had 2-way full duplex radios that were a stepping stone. A bit limiting, but they worked. Push-to-Talk (PTT) was a thing and we all knew how to use it.

Then we had patches, devices that would “patch” you from the radio to a single telephone line. The early ones I worked on required a Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) code to get to the phone line. I had a keypad on my mic that I would have to punch in to gain access. 

So on those systems, no privacy unless you put encoders and decoders on your radios. Most companies didn’t pay for that feature back then. 

Then we could pass data, but using modems. It wasn’t magic, we had a receiver or modem, an interface, a controller, and a radio. Evolution baby.

Then, we had trunked radio, which took privacy and connections to the next level. You would talk over a wide area radio network, across the state and eventually the country. Think Nextel. When Motorola built the Nextel network, it combined the idea of PTT on trunked-radios and cellular networks at the time, that was pretty cool! Push the button, and talk to another Nextel subscriber like you’re on a walkie-talkie even though they’re in the next state. Very nice. Multiple users in one band on multiple carriers.

Cellular took us past trunked radios by offering a phone in your car, then your bag, and eventually in your pocket. 

At the site, it connected to a T1 line which carried 24 voice lines. At that time, voice was all that mattered. 

The radios had to be able to do certain things, key up and key down. (Key up means it would start transmitting usually at full power, key down means it stops transmitting.)

This was used back when we had the older technologies which most people forgot about. 

Pre-Cellular RAN

  • MTS – Mobile Telephone Service – 2-way radio, yes, this was the early mobile phones. We would key up a radio and enter a code using DTMF to access a phone line to make calls. Anyone could listen to your calls if they had a radio. If you wanted to make a call, you waited until the person on the line was done or you would listen to another channel to see if it was open. Each radio had a site, there was no handoff. 
  • IMTS – Improved Mobile Telephone Service – This was MTS, only better because the device would transmit and receive the entire time, no more PTT (Push to Talk). Crazy advanced, right? OK, there was a little more to it, but you get the idea. 

Then, as man advanced, we left the Stone Age and entered the Cellular Age!

  • 2G – second generation – This was when we entered a new age of communication. Unfortunately, we had so many technologies back then it’s hard to list all of them, (sorry if I missed yours). This was the entry of smart connections and using GSM, CDMA, and several other technologies that have been lost to time. Please note that the radios were on the ground so we ran Coax up the tower to connect to the antennas. Slowly, the idea of sectors was starting to concentrate the radio signal in one specific direction. Building the site, you would have 1 crew that did almost everything, from the tower top down to the commissioning and integration of the base station.
  • 3G – third generation – This is when phones and networks got more secure and smarter. CDMA and GSM technologies dominated but there were a few others. Most of the other technologies faded away. Spectrum was still very limited and almost all systems were FDD. TDD really wasn’t a thing back then in cellular. Slowly the FCC released higher spectrum, in the Gigahertz (GHz). This meant that Coax loss was an issue. As a reminder, the higher the spectrum, the higher the loss through coaxial cable. We used larger coax cables, and lower loss, which caused a lot of issues from cost to space to tower loading. Then, against conventional wisdom at the time, OEMs started putting radios on the tower close to the antennas to reduce RF loss through cables. Those were transitional times that rocked the industry, but few outside of the industry cared.

OK, let’s get back to the RAN and how it’s evolved past being a radio at the base of the tower. 

We’ve evolved past 3G to 3.5G and 3.75G. Sound familiar? Thinking of 4.5G and 5.5G and 5G advanced here.) Now we’re entering 4G which leads to 5G.

For those of you that remember a lot of other technologies, I get it. I purposely didn’t cover them all because I could drone on forever about past technologies. This is a lot to take in. 

Enter the Age of DRAN 

OK, let’s talk about distributed RAN, DRAN. We pronounce it Dee ran. 

Why is it distributed? Well, in the 3G days, we started to split the radio from the controller. The controller evolved to become the BBU, (which back then was a controller for either GSM or CDMA radios). That means that the radio had to be smarter and needed some type of interface to run up the tower. In the beginning, some OEMs used an intermediate frequency (IF) so you could use cheaper and smaller coax up the tower. This was soon replaced with data lines using copper or fiber. Copper had issues because of all the RF at the tower. So fiber was run up the tower for data and copper for power. Noise was still an issue, but the OEMs worked through that. 

We have the BBU at the base of the tower and we run fiber and copper up the tower to the radios. Then we have shorter coax cables, normally 6 to 20 feet, from the radio to the antennas unless the radios are integrated. Integrating the radio and antenna eliminates the need for coax. That is how massive MIMO came about.

This wasn’t just for cellular. We also did this for microwave, which was a major rethink of how to design microwave backhaul. 

Why is it such a big deal in the history of RAN? Because in the old days, we had so much loss from very long coax runs. We needed huge radios to pump out the power we wanted. Suddenly, we were able to lower the power of the radios because coax runs went from 100 to 300 feet to under 20 feet. The radios would be outside, so sir conditioning savings were seen in the beginning. We thought we would save money by running less coax. We thought the coax was expensive and the labor was tedious. Little did we know that hybrid fiber/power cables would be almost as much. We did save space with the hybrid cable but adding the radios to the tower caused us to do loading studies everywhere and we had to beef up the older towers to support radios at the top. We solved one problem just to create another. Not to mention anytime a radio failed we needed a tower climber to replace it.  

Pros:

  • Low RF loss through the coax.
  • Higher spectrum is now an option. Now we can go into mmWave without issue. New radios can house multiple RF bands and technologies without running new COAX anywhere. 
  • Less RF power means less utility power usage at the site and hopefully lower utility bills.
  • Shorter coax meant, at the time, way fewer dollars spent on very expensive COAX cable. However, hybrid cables, (copper and fiber), became the thing and they are expensive.  
  • Less copper at the sites meant less theft. Coax is full of copper.
  • Lighter radios, cheaper shipping, more efficient radios. 
  • Heat generation was moved to outside of the cabinet or shelter.
  • Better data quality with shorter coax runs.
  • More space in the shelter without the radios.
  • Fewer and smaller openings between indoor racks through the wall/cabinet panel up to the antennas. We also used less space in the cable ladders running up the towers. At the time this looked great, but we found a way to mess that up with huge hybrid cables. 
  • This model led to the MIMO technology and active antennas we commonly use today!

Cons:

  • We moved the weight of the radios up to the tower top. That meant we had to beef up all the existing towers and re-engineer the towers to support the weight equivalent of hanging a VW BUG on top of the tower. This added delays and huge costs to the projects and spurred a lot of new towers to be built. Some towers were too expensive to upgrade. Today, we need to do a structural analysis on every tower and understand exactly what will be added to the tower, so planning ahead is critical, and over estimating the weight by predicting what you plan to add over the next 3 to 5 years helps you in the long run.
  • Tower leases became more complicated with the tower companies counting each antenna, radio, jumper, and cable run to the lease limiting carriers, and charging for each item, wherever they can.
  • We had to run power from the base of the tower to the top, so now we had to calculate the required copper to carry such power over 100 feet in many cases.
  • When we started this, PIM was a huge factor in copper. PIM was a major thing, and running copper up to power a radio created new problems. So we had to overcome that with filtering and creative power supplies. PIM is still an issue, but not nearly as much. Today we need tower climbers to troubleshoot PIM issues, but we always needed climbers to troubleshoot line issues. Pre-tested PIM coax cables became a requirement on non-integrated antennas.
  • Fiber skills were not common among tower workers when 4G deployment started. Early on this meant we needed tower workers to learn to splice fiber. (No longer an issue because now all tower fiber jumpers are connectorized). 
  • Any radio troubleshooting now requires a climbing crew to replace faulty radios. Today, radios are very reliable but early on they failed often. Lightning strikes were a nightmare. We needed an entire team to repair lightning damage at the time. Today, not so much, the OEMs have done an outstanding job overcoming all of these issues. There may still be issues, but the percentages are very low compared to 10 years ago.
  • New cabling solutions had to be implemented.

OK, I think you get the idea. To get here we went through a lot of pain, but it was worth it.

These breakthroughs in design led to Massive MIMO in integrated antennas. That is leading to less equipment on the tower and improved coverage everywhere.

Not only this but as the spectrum got higher and data became the standard (instead of voice), we made each cell smaller.

At the time, we looked at smaller cell sites and more money, because you had to build more towers and put radios on more building tops, Bad, right?

No, again, it was counterintuitive. Why? Because loading was becoming an issue at that time sites would get overloaded a lot. We had to think of how to improve this without waiting on the OEMs to get their heads out of their asses.

So, the way I remember it was that Verizon came up with the idea of making cells smaller, more sites in a given area. At the time, this was counterintuitive because sites were expensive. Today it makes sense. They were building new sites everywhere in every market. They wanted a small cell, which Alcatel-Lucent developed. On paper, it looked great.

The reality is that what Verizon really wanted was a macro site without the BBU.

So this paved the way for CRAN and the BBU Hotel.

The Rise of CRAN and the BBU Hotels

OK, CRAN in this context is Concentrated RAN. What is this? Well, this is another evolution story that we owe to DAS systems. (DAS = Distributed Antenna Systems.) 

Since we started putting radios with antennas, whether with a radio and antenna or an integrated antenna, it changed DAS systems going forward, at least for carrier bands. The BBUs could be concentrated in one room, hence the name BBU Hotel, and run fiber all over a venue instead of coax. Remember this was a savings in the beginning and for DAS systems it saved a ton of money. Remember that inside most buildings, Coax had to be indoor fire-rated which was very expensive. 

So when the radios were collocated with the antennas, it made sense and installation of the cabling was way cheaper. Remember in venues and buildings you run thousands of feet of cable in one venue. Fiber is way cheaper than coax for material and labor. You can also run extra fiber strands for radio expansion.

However, it wasn’t that easy. DRAN runs were originally very short, mostly under 300 feet. Why does this matter? Because timing between the BBU and radio was a major issue in the beginning. We had to come up with a way to account for delays of milliseconds between the BBU and the radios. 

Most of you don’t remember but there was a lot of drama improving fronthaul. There were no standards. Then came CPRI, Common Public Radio Interface. This was created as a standard so that DAS vendors could use their own radios, this was back in the early 4G days. At that time they were trying to open up the RAN to new radio vendors but the BBUs were still matching the local carriers’ core, just assuming ALU/Nokia or Ericsson. At this time new cores, like Cisco, were just coming out to open up the core.

Don’t forget how the carriers have opened up the networks, core, backhaul, and fronthaul to avoid being married to one vendor. This allowed Cisco, Juniper, and other vendors to embed themselves into the carrier’s networks. If you see all the big names, remember it takes a long time, like over a year, to get tested and accepted for adoption in any major carrier. 

See my old fronthaul posts here and here. Morse on CPRI here and here and here. 

So, CPRI was opening up the fronthaul with standards that others could use. Then Nokia developed and adopted eCPRI, which evolved CPRI. This allowed a longer delay between the BBU and the radio. It also assumed the brains in the radio would complete some of the BBU functions. In other words, the radio had to be smarter.

Think about the ongoing radio evolution. It was no longer just a radio or upconverter, it was now a radio, a fiber interface, a data processor, and a CPU deciding on delays and data. It also became a remote live test set for the NOC. It got way smarter!

Oh, keep in mind, it is still point-to-point. It can only talk to specific radios. Each card in the BBU has a specific interface for each radio. Today they can do multiple technologies, 3G & 4G & 5G, but this is a recent development. They also can handle many carriers on any given radio.

You get the idea, the BBU and radio can do a lot.

But when connecting from the BBU to the radio, it normally fibers from the BBU to the radios. One BBU can feed many radios and some radios will allow you to daisy chain to the next radio depending on the configurations. Each site is its own system. Each site has its own RF design. Each site has to be designed for its spectrum, radio density, and about a hundred other factors. Again, it’s complicated.

So, back to fronthaul, it wasn’t a quick journey to make this work. There had to be standards. There had to be engineering updates and improvements. There had to be evolution to get us to where we are today. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

CRAN to C-RAN and Open RAN

C-RAN in this article means Cloud RAN. Open RAN means Open RAN, I wanted to use ORAN but there is so much confusion because the O-RAN Alliance took the name before industry adoption. 

So we figured out how to separate the BBU and the radios by a few miles. That is a step in the right direction, right? 

If any of you remember your 5G drawings you will remember that we had the CU (Centralized Unit) and the DU (Distribution Unit) and the RU (Radio Unit). 

  • CU is basically the Core, the way I see it today.
  • DU is the BBU or a version thereof.
  • RU is the radio portion of the RAN.

Remember the goal of 5G was to make the network an IP network end-to-end as well as settling on one RF standard worldwide. The reality of 5G was that it became a network transformation for the carriers. 

No more CDMA or GSM, it’s all one standard now. It is more like a network and less like a proprietary system. 

Believe it or not, it has opened up to more vendors than ever. In the days of old, it was so proprietary that one vendor had dominance. Those days are gone and more vendors will have a shot if they can endure the marathon of testing the carriers will put them through. However, running true Open RAN isn’t quite there on a large scale. It’s still more closed than Wi-Fi, which is your true open network. 

The plug-and-play (PnP) models are not quite there yet. I see them coming, but to be honest I thought they would be here by now. They’re not. We can do a lot remotely, but we can’t plug it in and wait. We have to upload a base config, add the local parameters, and then call the NOC to complete. It’s still a process that is less automated than expected. Again, it’s not as easy as Wi-Fi.

So to go from CRAN to C-RAN you have to move BBU functions into the cloud. The larger OEMs are working on this, but it’s been a struggle. The BBU has a lot of processing power and does way more than converge the data in and data out. It has a brain that is constantly processing all the data for that particular site. It also has to be aware of any neighbors so it doesn’t create problems with them or itself. It also has to process and route data the best it can. It’s running uphill all the time. Now it is being asked to be more energy efficient by figuring out when to turn down unused carriers. 

I’m exhausted thinking about it.

The next step is to have it connect to radios like the cloud would connect to your laptops. It’s a tall task and one that will require high-level security along with so many proprietary functions that 5G signal processing requires. 

To me, Cloud RAN has to happen before a true Open RAN system can happen. The fact that the Open RAN vendors made it work, you have to think about what apps they’re running. You also have to think beyond the data.

For instance:

  • Voice, like VoNR, will require that e911 works at every site, tested at every site,
  • Timing needs to be considered, probably using GPS timing at every site,
  • Broadband for mobile and FWA users will be demanding, can it handle the traffic?
  • Interference with neighbors will be an issue if not set up properly,
  • Carrier aggregation needs to happen, can the radio and BBU communication work using the Cloud?

While these seem complex, it’s because they are. 

I do think that Open RAN would work for a data-only system today using a smaller vendor’s radios. This would make sense. 

I think evolution requires C-RAN to work before we go to Open RAN on a carrier’s network.

Open RAN sounds wonderful, but in execution, there are so many details that need to be worked out. I think we had to get to 5G to make it work better. I think it works better in a digital use case-driven network, not in a network that is built to do many different things. 

Evolving to Open RAN, someday:

We have been talking about Open Ran a lot lately. I wanted to explain why it was a bit premature to the market for carriers. Mainly that version needed time to mature. One thing about a carrier’s network is they have to make sure the equipment works end to end without incident. 

It’s not that Open RAN won’t work, it’s that it was too early and hasn’t evolved yet. 

I’ve been in this business for some time and I realize that sometimes you’re ahead of technology. While the vision may be there, the dots can’t be connected. Approvals and testing take time, it’s not all about the vision. 

I talked to Open RAN vendors early on and their main argument was that they were going to make RAN super cheap. Here is a list of the promises as I understood them.

  • Use any OEM radio anywhere, it will be an open system,
  • Just connect to a backhaul and it will come up,
  • Use our software in the RAN and the Cloud and it will work,
  • Imagine putting any radio anywhere without any real commissioning or integration.

However, it didn’t play out like that for several reasons, which I will explain later in this article. First, I want to explain why things take so long in this industry to evolve. It’s not just about money, it’s about moving technology ahead with proven and trusted technologies. You have to make sure something works before you put millions of users on it. 

Like it or not, there is a reason why carriers trust larger OEMs. A large OEM does endless testing, updates, and upgrades to ensure a reliable and working system that is secure. They spend a long time, sometimes up to a year, to get approvals and acceptance. You must play the long game in this industry. The lifespan of the radio could go well beyond 10 years. 

As a side note, security and trust are huge factors. Huawei and ZTE lost trust by allowing employees (assuming the Chinese government people) to log into end users’ networks and access information. I wrote about it here. 

What is Open RAN, really?

The network is evolving as well. Open RAN is part of the evolution that some vendors have bet on. Open RAN is really opening up the backhaul and, (in theory), allowing any radio to be used on the network. Think about how you deploy Wi-Fi, it’s easy, cheap, and you can mix and match radios, sort of. It could be a game changer or it could lead to security issues. We have to do research and testing to be sure, carriers can’t just dive in without justification, they have to be sure.

Back in 2021, Jon Gold outlined it in his article, “What is Open RAN?” The way I read this was that Open RAN would set standards so that components of the RAN could be easily interconnected. What does this really mean? 

Juniper wrote a statement that says, “An Open RAN, or open radio access network, is made possible by a set of industry-wide standards that telecom suppliers can follow when producing related equipment. Open RAN enables programmable, intelligent, disaggregated, virtualized, and interoperable functions”.

Back in 2020, Chris Pearson wrote for 5G Americas and said, “ Open RAN involves the interoperability of open hardware, software and interfaces and cellular wireless networks. The Open RAN concept introduces advanced features and capabilities beyond the current standard centralized approaches to the RAN through leveraging a programmable open-software development approach.” 

To me, it means that the radios would just be radios and any BBU could connect to them and control them. It would mean that the system would open up and be easily connected like Wi-Fi hotspots. It would mean lower security and increased troubleshooting time. 

If you’ve ever done any carrier work you know nothing is that easy. These systems do a lot more than Wi-Fi. These systems are highly complicated telecommunications systems that people rely on for not only data and broadband, but also for voice, 911 calls, and safety. 

5G networks also have tons of KPIs that are collected every second. They have to worry about security, reliability, performance, and quality of service. 

It’s great that the standards would be set, but as you know, it never works out that well. If you worked on networks, you know Juniper and Cisco may or may not work together well without working out the bugs because each manufacturer has its own proprietary way of doing things.

But Open RAN is a stepping stone to Virtualized RAN. Think about it like a DAS system where you have a controller connected to several OEM’s systems. 

I also think back to when CPRI and eCPRI were setting standards. That did not go smoothly because not all OEMs bought in. Nokia was one of the first, but others were dragging their feet.

Open RAN also opens up a lot of security risks. 

Open RAN to vRAN

For this article, vRAN is Virtualized RAN. That is when the RAN can be configured for a specific use for a specific customer. I think this is cool, but I know very little about the vRAN models at this point. It seems like it would be ideal for private networks. If I can virtualize the RAN and make each area a use case-driven model which makes sense for private networks. 

One of the dreams of Open RAN was to run BBU functions on COTS (Common Off The Shelf) hardware. Why, because it’s cheaper than buying a BBU. The only issue is through lots of testing, so far, COTS just can do it. Not reliably anyway. 

So, vRAN was planning to virtualize even more functions of the RAN. There is a good comparison here, in this article written by Mohamed Abdel Monem where he explains the difference between Open RAN and vRAN. He explains that the big difference is that Open RAN would literally open things up whereas vRAN would still have proprietary interfaces.

I think vRAN is well on its way to becoming an industry standard,  but not until 6G is close. I think vRAN missed the 5G bus and now it has to wait until 6G takes off. 

Why was Open RAN too early for Large Carriers?

In my opinion, and I am spitballing here, most people think Open RAN will allow them to choose cheap radios. They thought Open RAN would be way cheaper and that they could use any radio on their network. I did too. 

Let me tell you what I learned through testing feedback I’ve gotten. Open RAN was more expensive than expected and lacked end-to-end ownership to resolve issues. When you deploy, finger-pointing is an issue, especially among smaller vendors that don’t have the manpower to resolve complicated issues. Large carriers are demanding. 

It turns out that wise sage, Nevile Ray from T-Mobile, said at a UBS conference according to Fierce Wireless, “We just have to be patient. The ecosystem in O-RAN is going to take some time to develop. You look at the radio business today and you have three major incumbents, right? One of them is Chinese. It’s a massive scale game and it’s a complex business… There’s massive R&D in this space to future-proof your networks. There’s a whole debate about who built and developed this stuff and who owns the IP. We see that almost every day… That’s not just the radio vendors,” but Qualcomm and many others that are involved.”

That guy wasn’t the T-Mobile President of Technology for nothing!! By the way, he said that back in 2021. 

However, if the Open RAN model makes sense going forward, we’ll start moving in that direction. If it doesn’t then we will find something better. Moving into 6G I believe that Open RAN and vRAN could be part of it, unless something better happens. 

How does Massive MIMO fit in?

One thing about the evolution of RAN, it goes beyond the full network. We have to look at how the radios and antennas are evolving. By putting the radio and antennas together in the past, they would have less room used on the tower and eliminate RF jumpers. Seems like a win, right? 

Well, the drawback was that when new spectrum was added or they would go from 2×2 MIMO to 4×2 MIMO then a complete change had to happen.

Radio upgrades happen all the time. That was also an issue.

Today we have smarter radios that are somewhat future-proofed. They have more hardware in them that can be activated in the software. That makes moving ahead better.

So along comes massive MIMO where they crammed antennas into the antenna, roughly 32×32 or 64×64, where each small antenna is controlled by the radio to concentrate the signals, (receive and/or transmit), where the users are. This is an amazing breakthrough allowing better coverage and more throughput using science. It’s pretty cool. I wrote about it back in 2018.

This is an amazing improvement over standard radio antenna models because it allows concentrated coverage using beamforming, better throughput by simultaneously transmitting and receiving data at the same time, and allowing connections that are reflected or not line-of-site to each device. 

Evolution in the radio and antenna is still happening today. Long live R&D!!

That brings us to the network.

What about Private Wireless Networks?

OK, here is where I could see Open RAN really taking off. P5G networks would get a boost from Open RAN and all the smaller OEMs could get in on the act.

When building a smaller network, you want fast, easy, and cheap.

If the vendors are correct, then Open RAN in P5G would make deployments so much easier. Assuming radios would get closer to plug-and-play. In the US, SAS is already in most of the radios. 

It makes sense to start here and get it rolling out on a smaller scale. Most private networks are a controlled and limited environment.  

I have seen this so many times in the industry, smaller companies and OEMs chase the carriers thinking they can break in and impress their investors. I’ve seen companies live and die by this. It takes deep pockets to make it happen. It also helps to have some friends in high places within the carrier to support your efforts. 

It’s not so easy and when someone tries to disrupt the industry and when it does happen it’s impressive. However, that is only part of it because then they are under the gun to deliver, perform, and maintain. 

I’ve seen a lot of companies die this way. It helps to know someone high up.

I believe that private networks will be the next RAN system to be revolutionized. I think that these networks will open up new ways the networks can be utilized and deployed. This will be an evolution to put a dent in the industry. 

I believe when we talk of RAN evolution, private networks will spark the industry as they catch on. 

Tough Times Are Here for Wireless Workers

I was reading an article by Iain Morris in Light Reading where he talks about the harsh business conditions ahead for new RAN participants. I see it hitting way more than RAN vendors, it’s already hitting the front lines, climbers, engineers, project managers, and so on.

Mr. Morris mentions that Mavenir is going to get hit hard. I can see that. It makes sense, right? They will be hurt when all of their customers slow spending. 

I think the real question is, how will they move forward? Will they be bought? Would a larger OEM buy them just to make them go away? Do they have another trick in their bag to spark new growth?

I guess we’ll see. Personally, I would like to see them survive to provide competition, but they have to turn a profit. In business, money matters. 

Oh, when I say hard times are coming, they’re already here for most of the industry. I look at 2023 as a huge course correction for tech. Look at all the downsizing we’ve seen from Facebook, Twitter, Google, and more. In telecom, we’ve seen the downsizing recently. It’s very sad. There is a wave of downsizing across all of tech. 

I predict people will start leaving the telecom industry. I get it. We work long hours, get little recognition, and the pay could be better. My only question is, where will they go? It’s not like it’s  better in other industries, is it? Fiber? Construction? Aerospace? Electrical? I just don’t know because I am an old dog. At some point, they may put me down. 

Evolving RAN Business Cases have to make sense.

When making a change in the RAN, it has to make sense. I don’t think people realize the expenses that carriers put into their RAN. It is something they have to change or modify across an entire market. In the US alone, carriers spend billions of dollars to make that happen. That is why in some countries they put off the 5G RAN upgrade as long as they could. To make sure it was mature to eliminate as much site work as possible. 

Look at the expenses around RAN work. All the site work goes well beyond tower work. It all adds up.

Services:

  • Lease amendments.
  • Surveys.
  • Construction drawings, updates, redlines.
  • The actual tower work.
  • Structure upgrades where required.
  • Additional steel and mounts on the tower.
  • Utility power upgrades where required.
  • Backhaul upgrades where required.
  • Commissioning of equipment.
  • Integration of equipment.
  • On-air validation and testing.
  • E911 testing and validation.
  • Coverage testing.
  • Alarm clearing and monitoring.
  • Upgrades, bug fixes, etc.
  • Bring carriers live.

Then the actual hardware at each site.

  • New radios.
  • New antennas if required.
  • Additional steel mounts, standoffs, clamps, etc.
  • New fiber at site.
  • New copper for power.
  • New RF jumpers if required.
  • New BBUs, cards, and radio support products.
  • New networking equipment as required.
  • Batteries.
  • Updated power plants.
  • New cabinets if adding equipment.
  • Maybe a platform expansion if required.

Then reliability.

  • Product test and acceptance.
  • Downtimes.
  • Network risks.
  • Potential failures.
  • Network outages.
  • Utility upgrades.
  • Backhaul modifications.
  • Core updates.
  • Alternative solutions.
  • Temporary solutions.
  • Software test and acceptance.
  • Feature testing and acceptance. 
  • Large customer complaints.
  • Repairs and replacements.
  • Product upgrades during rollout.
  • Market feedback.

Then the use of the end device needs to be considered. That’s the difference between a private network and a carrier’s network, the size and use. A carrier has to approve every device that may run on it and it has to appeal to a huge audience whereas the private network may be built for one purpose or limited purpose. That’s why it can run into so much money.

Each carrier needs to think through the use of the network and what they want to add for a feature. How they utilize the network is how they will make money moving forward. A lot of thought has to be taken into consideration. 

Moving Ahead.

I think we have a lot of changes coming to move ahead. I know that the industry is already buzzing about 6G. They’re already trying to determine standards and a vision of what that will look like. 

I would think the innovation will be amazing, but only if they have a futuristic vision to make it happen. I want them to think outside the box.

I would also think that software will be the future. They should be able to make changes in days instead of months. 

I would think that moving to SA and P5G will make networks personalized.

I think the Open idea may close due to security concerns. Security will be a huge part of moving forward. You see how many hacks, lockdowns, and ransoms are happening today. This has to stop and can’t be allowed on wireless networks. 

  • Secure networks will be a priority. 
  • Expanded reach matters.
  • New use cases will be discovered.
  • Localized networks will take off.
  • Individualized features will be the rage.
  • Throughput will be critical.
  • Low latency will push the Cloud connections to the Edge and then to the Fog.

I still get excited, do you?

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