Nobody except the wildest optimists believe Open RAN will be easy. Operators are being asked to deploy the challenging functions of the macro RAN on a cloud platform while simultaneously introducing the 5G core, new use cases and potentially new suppliers. However, confidence that the barriers will be lowered by the mid-2020s has been bolstered by the collective efforts being made across the ecosystem, and most operators are particularly reassured when large suppliers with significant radio expertise lend their weight to the shared endeavor.
Nokia has been the most significant member of the old guard to take a leading role in Open RAN, but comments at a recent regulatory meeting showed that even those committed to the cause still have doubts, and that large companies are likely to remain divided about the pros and cons of opening up the platform for some time. The comments, reported by Light Reading, came from Florian Damas, who heads Nokia’s policy and regulatory affairs team. He was speaking an online conference run by BEREC, the group of European telecom regulators, and addressed two of Open RAN’s most controversial aspects – energy efficiency and security.
These two issues are critical to any emerging network and are seen as two of the most difficult challenges of moving from dedicated appliance base stations to running RAN functions in software on cloud infrastructure, while supporting hardware and software from multiple vendors. Despite intense efforts by processor makers such as Intel and Nvidia, these companies acknowledge that general purpose processors (GPPs) cannot yet run very intensive tasks such as 5G beamforming without consuming considerably more power than a dedicated chip.
While the IT community are positive that the issues will be addressed in the coming year or two, Damas was more cautious. He said: “You are talking about ways for new entrants to run their software on commercial, off-the-shelf cloud computing platforms. The reason why established vendors have custom-made system-on-chip hardware solutions is to ensure that we meet the targets when it comes to energy efficiency. We have to be very careful between everything on common platforms and the objective of the green deal to reduce energy consumption.”
“No one disputes that you can do Layer 1 with an accelerator using x86 for wireless. The problem is you need a room compared to one box or a rack,” Earl Lum, a semiconductor analyst with EJL Wireless Research, told Light Reading.
The ecosystem is more divided on security, with some arguing that open platforms increase scrutiny and visibility of any vulnerabilities, and increase the number of brains seeking to close these gaps; while others counter that open networks have a large number of entry points for hackers, and it is difficult to monitor security when so many different elements and pieces of code are involved, and are being constantly updated by different suppliers.
Damas seems to be in the latter camp, claiming that when elements come from different vendors, that will not just present a systems integration challenge, but a security issue. “Security needs to be built into the system fairly early on in the design phase rather than being added only in the process,” he commented. “If Open RAN is meant to diversify the network, it still requires the same security checks.”
Of course, Damas was talking about Open RAN in a relatively narrow regulatory context, and this does not reflect a broader retreat from support within Nokia. Open RAN has played a central role in the company’s strategy to bounce back from its disappointing performance in the early 5G RAN deployments and to steal a march on its rivals by embracing, rather than resisting, the opening up of the virtualized network.
No doubt the core objective is to use its incumbent status to ensure it can drive and shape the Open RAN platform, and gain a dominant position while Ericsson hesitates and Huawei is restricted in many countries. There have already been criticisms that vendors in general, and Nokia in particular, have too much influence over the O-RAN Alliance, the main body defining specifications for elements such as the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC). This perceived problem was one reason the operator-centric Open Networking Foundation (ONF) gave for setting up its own RIC effort, SD-RAN.
But however strategic Open RAN is in terms of Nokia’s market image, and its ability to replace Ericsson and Huawei easily in future 5G roll-outs, the company shares its Swedish rival’s concerns that governments may get too involved in technical decisions, which could alienate operators, and lead to European vendors being sanctioned in other markets, notably China. “Since Open RAN is the natural technology evolution, respective deployments should be market-driven and not mandated,” said Damas. “If introduction will take place gradually, as Open RAN matures, then it should be left to telecom operators’ choice of how to design their respective network architectures.”
There has been backlash against the recommendations by a taskforce, set up by the UK government to examine telecom supply chains in the wake of the ban on Huawei, which has recommended that operators should use Open RAN in 25% of their networks by the mid-2020s. This not (yet) a mandate and the 25% is ill-defined but operators never welcome having their freedom of choice restricted, especially by committees with limited technological knowledge, and especially when they are being asked to adopt architectures that are not yet fully proven.
Large operators such as Europe’s ‘Gang of Five’ – Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Vodafone – will have a significant impact on the speed with which challenges are addressed, through their collective support and efforts. But others remain more cautious. Jimmy Ahlstrand, chief corporate affairs officer at Telenor Sweden, last week dismissed Open RAN as a “short or medium term” choice and questioned whether it would be legal in Sweden.
“The security set-up or model for security would be a bit different than the typical solution we’ve had,” he said. “We have undergone an extensive review of the parties that want to provide 5G in Sweden and I would say that the regulatory framework used in that context wouldn’t have allowed for an Open RAN solution.”
The comments from Damas and Ahlstrand come from people whose job is to examine regulatory and policy issues, so they might be expected to be naturally cautious, but also not to be carried away by ‘Open RAN fever’. The challenges they point out will not be insurmountable, but they are significant, and will affect the timescale within which non-greenfield operators are comfortable to deploy the new technology in their macro RANs. Such discussions, conducted away from geopolitics or marketing messaging, should be welcome to all stakeholders.