Deutsche Telekom has been exploring one way to address the higher costs of general purpose processors (GPP), compared to dedicated ASIC chips, in a high performance RAN (see lead article). While the ability to run RAN functions as software on COTS hardware is central to the vision of a fully open, virtualized network, it does run up against the high cost of the chips – processors and accelerators – needed to support the very demanding tasks involved in running a RAN, especially those related to low latency and constant updating. While acknowledging the issue, Alex Choi, SVP of strategy and technology innovation at DT, said one solution is to offset the high cost of the processors by using the hardware…