O'Donnell writes regular columns for USAToday and Forbes, as well as a weekly blog for Tech.pinions.com that's also published on TechSpot, SeekingAlpha and LinkedIn. Indeed, to their immense credit, wireless (and broadband) networks have been impressively resilient throughout the course of the pandemic and, thankfully, have proven to be incredibly reliable under tremendous strain. 5G NR (New Radio) is a new air interface developed for the 5G network. SDxCentral employs cookies to improve your site experience, to analyze traffic and performance, and to serve personalized content and advertising relevant to your professional interests. When it comes to reliability, however, and the dependence we all have on these networks, a more measured pace of change does start to make sense. More sophisticated application demands, along with greater overall demand for bandwidth has put traditional telecom markets under a great deal of strain. Necessary and Functional Cookies - These cookies are necessary for the Site to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. This enables flexibility and creates new opportunities for competition, provides open interfaces and open source development, ultimately to ease the deployment of new features and technology with scale. As simple as that may sound, it actually required a great deal of effort across a host of different elements, such as Samsung’s new virtual CU (Central Unit) and virtual DU (Distributed Unit) components, which replace traditional proprietary network infrastructure hardware with software that runs on general-purpose computing hardware. View our Privacy Policy for more information. 5G RAN Architecture The concept of NFV extends to the RAN through for example network dis-aggregation promoted by alliances such as O-RAN. 5g ran Part of the end-to-end Nokia 5G Future X solution, our 5G RAN portfolio supports a flexible, AI-enabled architecture that includes our 3GPP R15-compliant 5G New Radio software, 5G-ready AirScale Radio Access, and groundbreaking ReefShark chipsets. It is supposed to be the global standard for the air interface of 3GPP 5G networks. E-UTRAN also provides high data rates and low latency. Learn about the benefits of 5G with Verizon. All Rights Reserved, This is a BETA experience. The multinational telecom carrier Telefónica has tapped Xilinx and a host of other hardware and software companies—including Altiostar, Gigatera Communications, Intel, and SuperMicro—to advance O-RAN, or open radio-access networks, within Telefónica's 4G and 5G wireless network. Devices primarily connect to cellular network via LTE or 5G NR connections. Learn more about Verizon's response to COVID-19, What is edge computing? The network controller performs radio resource management, mobility management, and data encryption. The RAN is the part of the mobile network that sits between your smartphone or any other end-user device (including things like IoT sensors, connected cars, etc.) Verizon has information about the intersection of mobile edge computing and 5G. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Toss in the increasingly sophisticated software used to manage all these resources, and the comparisons to cloud computing, as well as the seeming inevitability of the change for wireless networks, seems undeniable. O'Donnell is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. These improvements are projected to take place throughout the UK, Germany, Spain, and … Opting out of these cookies may impact some minor site functions. © 2020 Forbes Media LLC. At times, the methodical, conservative pace at which many telcos make changes to their networks can be frustrating to those who’ve become accustomed to the lightning-fast pace at which other aspects of the technology industry move. In addition to Samsung Networks’ efforts, Nokia has also come out as a strong supporter of the concept, believing that certain aspects of the RAN could benefit from more flexible options. Think about it this way—having Zoom go down for a few hours this week was bad, but if your entire internet (or mobile) connection went down for the same amount of time, it would be much worse. First, while uptime and reliability are incredibly important for cloud-based computing services and the applications that run on them, the utility-like service of wireless networks demands even more reliability. There has also been growing interest in Open RAN technologies from a number of other places. Cell phones use radio waves to communicate by converting your voice and data into digital signals to send through as radio waves. This evolution of RAN for 5G will have a huge impact on wireless technologies, including enabling Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and network slicing. Samsung Networks and Verizon announced the first fully virtualized, end-to-end 5G data connection, ... [+] highlighting the growing opportunity for Open RAN technology in 5G networks. As a result, even though there’s strong interest in moving to more modern network infrastructures, the move to Open RAN is clearly going to be a multi-year process. UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN). and the core telecom network. A device is wirelessly connected to the core network, and the RAN transmits its signal to various wireless endpoints, and the signal travels with other networks’ traffic. Components of the RAN include a base station and antennas that cover a given region depending on their capacity. highlighting the growing opportunity for Open RAN technology in 5G networks. Pre-standard implementations. In a RAN, radio sites provide radio access and coordinate the management of resources across the radio sites. (Huawei has also been a significant player in the network equipment infrastructure, but recent geopolitical challenges have begun to reduce its impact outside of China.). Performance & Tracking Cookies - We use our own and 3rd party analytics and targeting cookies to collect and process certain analytics data, including to compile statistics and analytics about your use of and interaction with the Site along with other Site traffic, usage, and trend data which is then used to target relevant content and ads on the Site. The bottom line is that the drive to adopt Open RAN and other more modern, software-defined, “virtualizable” network topologies is unquestionably moving forward, but the ultimate pace at which it occurs is going to be dependent on how easily network equipment vendors can make the transition possible for carriers. 5G’s advantages extend beyond just cell phone service and into telecom, public safety, healthcare and more. It is not an easy task to make sense of 5G wireless networks. At this point, it’s just a question of practical realities and how motivated all the various participants are in making it happen. In order for your cell phone to connect to a network or the internet, it connects first through a radio access network (RAN). While that makes it harder for larger portions to go down at the same time, it makes it much more challenging to upgrade all the different pieces that need to be upgraded in order to make this transition to an open, software-controlled, virtualized environment. Radio access networks have evolved over the years as cellular technology is now at 5G. This separation of the control plane and data plane will be an essential aspect of the flexible 5G RAN, as it aligns with SDN and network functions virtualization (NFV) techniques such as service chaining and network slicing. Traditionally, most of the equipment used in cellular wireless networks comes from a few dedicated vendors, notably Ericsson, Nokia, and more recently, Samsung’s Network division. Two types of RANs are Generic Radio Access Network (GRAN), which uses base transmission stations and controllers to manage radio links for circuit-switched and packet-switched core networks; and GSM Edge Radio Access Network (GERAN), which supports real-time packet data. A RAN provides radio access and assists to coordinate network resources across wireless devices. What are Radio Access Networks and 5G RAN. The radio access network (RAN) has been in use since the beginning of cellular technology and has evolved through the generations of mobile communications (1G through 5G). Of course, most people don’t really have to worry about how a wireless network of any kind works, as long as it does what it’s supposed to do. You may opt-out by. The RAN’s controller controls the nodes that are connected to it. So, for example, if you want to separate time-sensitive IoT traffic for manufacturing-based sensors from the data traffic on a consumer’s smartphone or even provide a private VPN-style connection for a company’s employees, network slicing can provide this and much, much more. Components of the RAN include a base station and antennas that cover a given region depending on their capacity. SDxCentral employs cookies to improve your experience on our site, to analyze traffic and performance, and to serve personalized content and advertising relevant to your professional interests. The firm's research and O’Donnell’s opinions are also regularly used by major media outlets, including Bloomberg TV, CNBC, CNN, Investor's Business Daily, the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, and more. In this scenario, the RAN controller can exchange user data messages through one software-defined networking (SDN) switch, and a second set with base stations via a second control-based interface. As a result, there’s been a lot of discussion about changing the overall architecture of the infrastructure used to power 5G networks. Find out more about Verizon’s 5G network and see how it will have an impact on your life—and on society. Samsung Networks and Verizon announced the first fully virtualized, end-to-end 5G data connection, ...[+] highlighting the growing opportunity for Open RAN technology in 5G … In particular, the company created a service that provided access for mobile developers to AWS’s Wavelength edge computing platform over Verizon’s 5G network. Radio access networks have experienced much evolution since their origins, to the point at which today’s RANs support multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) antennas, large spectrum bandwidths, multi-band carrier aggregation, and so on — all of which bodes well for the 5G future. At the same time, there can be challenges to moving to new environments as well. But it turns out things aren’t quite as simple as that in the telco world. 5GTF: The 5G network implemented by American carrier Verizon for Fixed Wireless Access in late 2010s uses a pre-standard specification known as 5GTF (Verizon 5G Technical Forum). Today, RANs can support multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) antennas, wide spectrum bandwidths, multi-band carrier aggregation and more. The radio access network (RAN) has been in use since the beginning of cellular technology and has evolved through the generations of mobile communications (1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, and in anticipation of the forthcoming 5G). Bob O'Donnell is the president, founder and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research, a technology market research and consulting firm that counts many of tech industry’s largest vendors among its clients. Validating New Technologies that Challenge the Limits. Given the incentive of speeding up the delivery of new 5G services, like network slicing, as well as improving the overall efficiencies and costs of running those networks, the appeal to move to Open RAN is strong.