The GSMA and the O-RAN Alliance have agreed to work together to develop open and interoperable Radio Access Network (RAN) technologies. RAN describes the hardware and software that manages the transmission of data from the device to the base station. New 5G radio technologies will be smarter and more efficient, maximizing spectrum use and enabling more reliable signals. Traditional acquisition methods have seen operators deploy integrated cell sites that include radio, hardware and software from a single vendor. This approach makes it difficult to mix and match innovations and is a significant barrier to entry for other vendors.
RAN open
The RAN market is dominated by Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia, but open RAN proponents believe that the use of open interfaces can lower barriers to entry for smaller players, potentially lowering costs and spurring innovation. 5G has increased the appetite for a more flexible model, with operators retooling their networks with cloud cores and software-defined networks (SDNs) to be more agile in terms of operations and deployment of new services. Open RAN advocates believe it can improve the user experience and allow operators to be more agile. In theory, operators could mix and match components from different vendors instead of being locked into a single vendor. By the way, Ericsson and Nokia are two of the 170 members of the O-RAN Alliance between operators, vendors and research institutes. The partnership between the GSMA and the O-RAN Alliance, which counts more than 170 mobile operators, vendors and research institutes among its members, aims to accelerate an industry-wide consensus on the adoption of open and interoperable virtualization and RAN interfaces. . "When 5G reaches its potential, it will become the first generation of mobile networks that will have a greater impact on businesses than consumers," said Alex Sinclair, GSMA's chief technical officer. “In the corporate sector alone, we anticipate that the 5G opportunity will create €700 billion in economic value. The growth of the open network ecosystem will be essential to meet the coverage and service needs of businesses in the 5G era. "As demand for vastly expanded mobile communications and data increases in the 5G era, a comprehensive, cross-border approach is needed to rethink RAN," added Andre Fuetsch, president of O-RAN and AT&T Alliance, CTO with O alliance -RAN is exactly the kind of global effort required for everyone, carriers and providers to succeed in this new generation.Earlier this year, the O-RAN Alliance agreed to work with the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) OpenRAN project. to speed up the development of an open ecosystem and ensure interoperability Nokia supported the Open