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OpenRAN and Private 5G – New Opportunities and Challenges

March 22, 2022 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm PDT

OpenRAN and Private 5G – New Opportunities and Challenges

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Online Materials:

Abstract:

For many years, the wireless network equipment market has been dominated by five big base station vendors (Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, Samsung).  Two new industry initiatives – OpenRAN and Private 5G promise to open up the market to new players which will provide radios, hardware modules and software.

Our distinguished panel will offer their company’s view of the opportunities and challenges for OpenRAN and Private 5G.  Some of the issues and questions to be addressed:

  • Can mix and match OpenRAN module interoperability result without solid standards?
  • Is OpenRAN just a different form of vendor lock-in (as LightReading claims)?
  • How will a legacy carrier manage and maintain a “brownfield” network of conventional RAN and OpenRAN?
  • Can 5G private networks compete with new WiFi offerings?  Or 4G-LTE private networks? Or 5G based fixed wireless access (FWA) public networks?
  • Will carriers be bypassed by new entrants offering 5G private networks using frequencies licensed by enterprise customers?
  • What can OpenRAN and Private 5G providers do better, cheaper, and with more value than Classic RAN and Wi-Fi?
  • Who are the competitors: Mobile carriers, legacy wireless infrastructure vendors, Wi-Fi players, new OpenRAN players, others?
  • Where are the REAL opportunities for companies to take market share from the big base station vendors in both OpenRAN and private 5G?
  • What are the barriers to success and what’s being done to resolve them?

Position Statements of the Participants:

1.  As a leading supporter of O-RAN, Nokia has been an important contributor to the O-RAN Alliance as well as 3GPP in shaping the open future including opening a new collaboration and testing center in the US. Nokia follows a product strategy where O-RAN is an integral part of its end-to-end software streams and on hardware interfaces and it is delivering on its customer promise of a competitive 5G RAN, by integrating O-RAN readiness in its products, solutions and services for best performance and lowest TCO.
2.  Mavenir will discuss how the wireless industry we got here, the current status, progress and future directions of Open RAN and 5G private networks globally; the adoption barriers that are being addressed by the new vendor ecosystem.
3.  Intel will describe how  OpenRAN is scaling to macro and private networks.  The position of their FlexRAN stack in current OpenRAN deployments will be explained. Next, 5G private network use cases in action will be presented.
4.  As 5G connectivity continues to take shape, edge demands impact the fluidity and constructs of 5G infrastructure. By softwarizing the RAN and converging 5G and AI on one silicon, EdgeQ has made virtually every aspect of the 5G Base Station-on-a-Chip programmable for the rich and diverse 5G enterprise, telco, and cloud.  We will explain the design advantages of software programmability and criticality of  disaggregation with integration necessitating ORAN deployment success.
5.  As a consultant to mobile carriers, StrandConsult is a keen wireless industry observer. We think that OpenRAN vendors will experience that it is difficult so sell their solutions to legacy mobile carriers. Many OpenRAN players will go after the market for 5G private networks – a crowded market that is currently dominated by existing Wi-FI and fixed wireless/wireline infrastructure. Strand Consult has nothing against OpenRAN – it merely wants to create transparency at the O-RAN Alliance, and some of its members have pushed back. Indeed Strand Consult’s transparency concerns are shared by policymakers in the EU and US, notably the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

Agenda and Format:

After the moderator’s opening remarks, each of our five speakers will provide a short description (5 to 8 minutes) of their company’s perspective, position and activities.  That will be followed by prepared questions by the moderators for the panelists to address (see above for a sample list).  Audience Q & A to follow – to be managed by the IEEE/SCU chairs.

Moderator:

Alan J Weissberger, IEEE Techblog Manager and SCU SoE Research Affiliate

Co-Moderator:

John Strand,  StrandConsult (also a panelist)

Speaker/Panelists:

  • Jane Rygaard, Head of Dedicated Wireless Networks, Nokia (Denmark)
  • John Baker, SVP Business development at Mavenir and board member of Open Ran policy Coalition and 5G Americas
  • Caroline Chan, VP, Network and Edge Group, Intel
  • Adil Kidwai, Head of Product Management, EdgeQ
  • John Strand, Principal of StrandConsult (Denmark)