Move to the cloud

Mobile Operators can learn a lesson from the Internet Unicorns. Just Eat, Airbnb and Uber all have something in common. One is a food business with no kitchens, another is an accommodation business that doesn’t own any property, and the third is a taxi business which owns no vehicles. The future of mobile networks is following suit.

What’s making this possible is the cloud. Moving functions which in the past have been done in hardware, into software, and then software that can run in the cloud. It’s a trend in many technology sectors, but in mobile it’s happening in the streetside cabinets. In a mobile network an antenna is connected to decoding equipment, which turns the analog radio signal into digital data, which can be sent along ethernet cables. Traditionally that kit is in two parts: a Remote Radio Unit (RRU), and a Baseband Unit (BBU).

The Remote Radio Unit needs to be as close to the antennas as possible because there is a significant signal loss in the cables between the two. So, typically the RRU is placed on or by the pole where the antenna is. The RRU in turn is connected to the BBU by fibre optic cables. There is a limit to how long these can be, so while one BBU can serve / connect to several RRUs, if each cell is quite large it may exceed the distance the fibre can be run to reach the farthest RRUs. The processing work done in the BBU is quite intensive, so this makes each one expensive.

This is where virtualisation becomes quite important and plays a significant role in driving the overall costs down. In both Open RAN architecture and 5G, the traditional BBU is replaced with a Distributed Unit (DU) and a Centralised Unit (CU). Mavenir can save costs by replacing the costly BBU with a costeffective Distribution Unit, or DU and move some of the processing to the centre of the network, with a Centralised Unit or CU. The work of the CU can all be performed in software. That’s where the special sauce of virtualised cloud technology comes into play. Instead of running on dedicated servers at the operator’s premises, the CU software is moved to a cloud provider, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google. So, what was a significant infrastructure cost, rolling out tens of thousands of BBUs across a country, had been replaced by cost-effective DUs and CUs that are based on COTS (commercial off the shelf) hardware. It is expected that, in future, DU will eventually move to public cloud as well and this is work in progress.

The CU equipment expense has been turned into a rental expense, essentially a Capital Expenditure has become an Operating Expenditure. But there are further savings to be made.

Capacity flexibility

Since the dawn of cellular, mobile network operators have been faced with, what in the UK was known as the “Park Lane Effect”. London’s Park Lane joins Marble Arch to Hyde Park Corner, and in the early days of analogue cellular was the business road in London. Peak time was 6pm and the busiest day of the week for making mobile phone calls was Thursday.

To ensure that there was enough capacity to handle all that traffic meant that the operators had to put in a lot of equipment, but for most of the week it was under-used. All weekend, only a fraction of the Thursday night capability was employed. Back when taking out a subscription meant a £300 joining fee, buying a £1500 Motorola handset, and when calls cost 25p a minute, operators had plump margins. But in today’s competitive environment, building enough physical infrastructure is more of a challenge.

The move to virtual equipment helps reduce the burden of equipment deployment. Software solutions can be deployed more rapidly and cost effectively than rolling out the hardware, but what really adds efficiency is the use of cloud service providers. Handling encrypted traffic between the DU and CU can be quite processor intensive. When using an on-premises server, this means having enough compute capability to keep everything running at peak times and letting it run idle the rest of the day. By using a cloud services provider with a clock-cycles-to-hire model, this becomes unnecessary. The telco only needs to buy capacity when required to meet the increased demand.

Mobile operators may choose to mix the kind of cloud services they use –public cloud, private cloud or hybrid cloud. While public cloud works well for demand sensitive services, there may also be applications for private cloud for functions which are needed all the time. This means choosing a software platform which o ers the flexibility to span across public and private.

The new approach works particularly well for challenger networks which don’t have legacy data centres.

A good example of this is DISH Networks in the US, a well established satellite television and broadband provider. DISH is moving into mobile with ambitious roll-out plans. It’s working with Amazon Web Services with a containerised environment (a form of advanced operating system virtualisation). This means instant access to resources, be it compute power, storage power or the cloud application environment, but it also adds flexibility of scale-in and scale-out. The orchestration is all in the cloud with added benefit of continuous improvement and continuous development. In addition, the Mavenir solution provides automation where the platform o ers zero-touch provisioning.

A little bit at a time

The solution uses a microservices-based architecture (an architecture where large applications can be broken down into separate smaller self-contained independent services) which allows small upgrades on a service-by-service basis, rather than risking the whole network by making an upgrade.

DISH has put the CU and the Mobile Core all onto the public cloud in Amazon Web Services, running on AWS’ Kubernetes platform. Amazon has 17 local zones in the US where CU elements reside. The Mobile Core is hosted in Amazon’s Regional or National Data Centre. The DU is maintained on-premises in DISH’s private cloud, running on VMware.

Mavenir is providing its cloud-native solution which comprises the DU and CU software, and analytics and management, called mCMS (Mavenir Centralized Management System). It’s a tribute to open systems as it highlights the extensive end-to-end collaboration within a multi-vendor environment.

The first phase is up and running in Las Vegas, having been launched on May 4th (ref. https://www.axios.com/2022/05/04/ dish-network-5g-las-vegas).

The ability to deploy software-based solution at a much faster pace on a public cloud not only eases the burden, both from an engineering and financial perspective but it also o ers flexibility. In a traditional, on-premises solution, deploying new services may be delayed by the lead time of delivery of hardware. By using a hyperscaler, the dimensioning is taken out of the decision loop.

This move to the cloud creates new paradigm for the operators to o er innovative 5G applications by leveraging the power of the cloud and 5G technology. For operators, besides the normal consumer services, it allows them to propose strong B2B o ering for their enterprise clients, especially on-demand slicing for enterprises.

Further, Mavenir, earlier in the year during MWC 2022 in Barcelona, announced its partnership with AWS for NaaHS (Network-as-a-Hosted Service). This will enable Mavenir 4G and 5G software solutions to be available on AWS. This would open-up a viable option for potential Businesses/MNOs/MVNOs who want to benefit from this service; this allows significant savings as they opt for a service / rental model and do not need to invest in hardware and software capital expenditure at the outset.

Moving Telco to the cloud isn’t quite the same business as Just Eat, Airbnb and Uber, but like those unicorns it demonstrates the ability to scale and disrupt the business. With the rapid rise of regional, community and private networks brought about by spectrum liberalisation the need has never been greater.

For more details email VP Market Strategy and Business Development: tushar.dhar@mavenir.com, or visit www.mavenir.com

NeutrORAN A project to test and demonstrate a multiple operator, neutral host solution using a multiple vendor Open RAN ecosystem with a view to depolyment by the major Mobile Network Operators. T EST AND ORCHESTRATION

Open RAN ARTS Open RAN Advanced Radio Test Systems sees AceAxis in partnership with MAC limited develop equipment to test the RF optical interface of a base station to lower the cost of deploying infrastructure. T owards AI A virtualised AI system to mange and optimise 5G networks to ensure “ease of deployment and operation”

CoMP-O RAN

O FH

Scalable

S mall cells which have integrated radio backhaul to build a network that doesn’t rely on the universal availability of fibre to create a deployment.

Integratio N And Deployment

A project using compound semiconductors to improve the efficiency of the fibre connection between the part of a cell site which a top a mast, and the part nearby on the ground which does the processing.

Component Suppliers

Secure 5G

Flex-5G C reat a 5G Standalone network in a box the size of a large computer, that is fully Open RAN compliant, using as much software and commodity PC components as can be achieved.

Equipment Manufacturers

The PA or Power Amplifier is a key radio component that boosts the signal. The consortium is developing a “Quantum secured”

ARI-5G

Best of British cellXica is building 5G cells designed and manufactured in the UK, that thanks to technology from AccelerComm should be significantly more efficient, and reduce deployment costs.

Software Defined Radio platform to produce a signal across a wider range of frequencies, up to 10 GHz, than is typically available today.

The winners of the Future RAN Competition are helping to build the next generation of mobile. But how might they co-operate?

ORanGaN

SONIC LAB S

The SmartRAN Open Network Interoperability Centre is a collaboration between Digital Catapult and Ofcom providing an open network testbed for vendors to test interoperability and accelerate their technology development.

Led by the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), the aim is to examine how the RAN is operated in a multivendor environment, focusing on the RAN Intelligent Controller and its network automation role . 5G Drive A security led programme led by Virgin Mobile O2, for private networks capable of integrating with public networks to simplify the install for private enterprises.

ECORAN Sometimes called a “datacentre in a box”, Cloudlets are small servers that sit between the cloud and the user’s devices, bringing computing power closer to the edge of the network. The project investigates novel ways of interconnecting and managing the equipment.

Compound semiconductors are components that amplify power and light, much faster than silicon can. The CSA Catapult-led project will help to develop a UK-based supply chain for these vital switching parts with chip manufacturing in Newcastle .

DU-Volution

BEACON5G Developing an end-to-end 5G Open RAN system, led by Toshiba. The nine members include NDEC, a UK centre of excellence in cyber resilience.

The Distributed Unit (or DU) takes analog radio signals and converts them into binary data traffic. The project is developing a reduced power, smaller DU with improved spectrum efficiency and reduced latency.

O-RANOS

Developing Open RAN based “secure software” to improve the performance of the interworking between public and private, and terrestial and satellite networks.

ROJECTS UP AND DOWN THE COUNTRY HAVE TRAINED thousands of people to acquire 5G skills . FRANC , the Future RAN Competition seeks to build on this investment. From the start it was decided to build the ecosystem by ensuring each bidder reflects different parts of the supply chain. But could projects co-operate too? The diagram here is an idea of how projects they might pool their knowledge and experience. We’ve categorised the projects into four groups : Pentagons are component suppliers, providing parts such as the chips used in mobile base stations. C ircles are the projects which are making the finished base stations Squares are projects that take base stations, test them and deploy them, a job involving some systems integration. Triangles show projects which provide software and services that other projects may be able to use.

Proteus

An abstraction layer of software which sits between the chipset and the base station hardware. This model enables base station designs that can incorporate the latest “chipsets (Intel & ARM)” without needing a full redesign.

This diagram is a generalisation , because a project consortium already reflects a very broad skill set. But to simplify things, we’ve concentrated on the prime activity.

The best use for this map is to help you understand how, if you work in 5G, you might contribute to the ecosystem and where your product or service might fit in. And just like a tube map, while it may be overwhelming when you look at it as a whole if you start with one project and look at how it relates to each of the others it’s much easier to follow.