Report: Open RAN Automation Poised to Deliver Benefits

Mobile operators around the globe are looking to Open RAN to help supercharge their digital transformation efforts with multi-vendor solutions.

The global Open RAN automation software and services market will grow from $50 million this year to $700 million by yearend 2027, according to a new research report on the topic from SNS Telecom & IT, a market intelligence and consultancy services firm.

What is Open RAN?

The growing deployment of 5G brings an industry initiative called "Open RAN" (O-RAN). O-RAN is a broad movement that seeks to virtualize Radio Access Network (RAN) functions with standardized interfaces with the goal of maximizing the use of common off-the-shelf hardware and allowing vendor diversity.

By enabling greater flexibility and scalability in network deployments, Open RAN has the potential to bring more players into the market and accelerate the deployment of 5G networks. In a closed RAN, where equipment interfaces are not open, an operator can only buy RAN equipment from very few incompatible suppliers.

The Open RAN movement is driven by the O-RAN Alliance, which was founded in 2018 by AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DOCOMO, and Orange.

Report Discusses Customer Choices

Although Open RAN automation efforts seemingly lost momentum beyond the field trial phase for the past couple of years, several commercial engagements have emerged since then, the LNS report said. "Much of the initial focus is on the SMO, Non-RT RIC, and rApps for automated management and optimization across Open RAN, purpose-built, and hybrid RAN environments."

AT&T: Within the framework of its five-year $14 Billion Open RAN infrastructure contract with Ericsson, AT&T is adopting the Swedish telecommunications giant's SMO and Non-RT RIC solution to replace two legacy C-SON systems, according to the report.

Telus: In neighboring Canada, Telus has also initiated the implementation of an SMO and RIC platform along with its multi-vendor Open RAN deployment to transform up to 50% of its RAN footprint and swap out Huawei equipment from its 4G/5G network.

Open RAN Simplicity and Savings

Mounting efforts to apply automation to Open RAN are targeted at what the report claims to be “the most expensive, technically complex and power-intensive part of cellular infrastructure – it’s is a key aspect of mobile operators' digital transformation strategies.” Some of the benefits such automation can deliver include:

“Due to the much higher density of radios and cell sites in the 5G era, energy efficiency has emerged as one of the most prioritized use cases of RAN automation as mobile operators push forward with sustainability initiatives," according to the report. These undertakings reduce energy consumption, carbon emissions, and operating costs without degrading network quality.

Some of the other use cases that have garnered considerable interest from the operator community include network slicing enablement, application-aware optimization, and anomaly detection.

Help From Advanced Tech Friends?

Used in conjunction with AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning), the report claims that RAN automation has the potential to significantly transform mobile network economics by:

The LNS Research comes with an associated Excel datasheet covering quantitative data from all numeric forecasts presented in the report.