What does an Open RAN Network mean?

Ibrahim_Sayed · October 23, 2022, 8:32am

My friend: Hi Ibrahim, I have a question for you.
- Me: Please, go ahead.
My friend: I was wondering what does it mean by Open RAN network?
- Me: Open RAN network simply means to have multi-vendor, disaggregated solution, and interoperable interfaces, so O-RAN Alliance is trying to adopt a truly interoperable RAN platform, where multiple vendors can participate in the ecosystem and avoid the high dependency of operators on a single vendor.
My friend: But how can the RAN be flexible?
- Me: The RAN architecture needs to be flexible so that it can be configured dynamically on the fly or released when it is not needed. This requires the RAN to be fully software programmable and its functions to be decomposed to the granular level so that they can be flexibly and dynamically allocated. This kind of flexibility can be achieved through virtualization and cloudification.
My friend: So, that means virtualization can be done in RAN as well, right?
- Me: Yes, that’s right. Virtualization and cloud technologies for CSPs began with the core network and have been evolving at a rapid rate. Then they appear at the RAN domain as well, currently, many vendors are using CU and DU as a software that can be installed at any other vendors agnostic commercial off-the-shelf hardware.
My friend: Thank you so much. You made it very clear.
- Me: You are most welcome.