Back in 2020, O-RAN was just more than a concept, I covered its advantages and how Indian operators could be beneficial by embracing it. The post also covers the importance of 5Gi or Desi 5G for the operators as they were ditching Chinese vendors. This move to ditch Chinese vendors was also appreciated by American politicians.
However more than 1 year after 5G launch in the country, none of the operators deployed OpenRAN ecosystem. Though all three - Jio, Airtel and Vi had explored O-RAN based networks before the 5G launch.
Okay, if you don't know what's OpenRAN and its advantages, let me explain it.
Since the inception, the usual mobile network equipment from vendors come with 'very sophisticated, but essentially proprietary' software and hardware - which forms the core of the network. This traditional Radio Access Networks is 'closed' in nature as it is incompatible with other vendors. And often these vendors may act stupid - they dictate the timeline and cost of maintenance and installation i.e. there is no easy upgrade or adoption for the networks.
Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) is a concept based on interoperability and standardization of RAN elements including a unified interconnection standard for white-box hardware and open source software elements from different vendors. O-RAN architecture integrates a modular base station software stack on off-the-shelf hardware which allows baseband and radio unit components from discrete suppliers to operate seamlessly together.
It is like you're having 1000 laptops in office and all running X, Y, Z operating system - but these hardware-software combo comes from three equipment makers. So now you found a new feature on another operating system, and want it to be included on X-Y-Z too - so you have to ask three suppliers to develop that so that you can use that feature on all laptops. It would take time and the suppliers would ask millions.
Ashraf Dahod, ex-CEO of Altiostar (now acquired by Rakuten), explained, “The incumbents are supplying an all-in-one — it’s proprietary software running on proprietary hardware — and you’re going to buy everything from them. If you want to add a new service, you have to pay them millions of dollars to develop the software. And if you have three suppliers, you’re going to pay money to all three of them, and you can launch a service only when all three of them are ready.”
OpenRAN was thought to an industry effort to break the oligopoly of Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei but now both Ericsson and Nokia both are embracing it in the fear of missing out (FOMO). We are not sure about Huawei's stance for this new tech.
Curious Case of Tareq Amin & His Love for OpenRAN
Back in February 2018 when Cisco unveiled their Open vRAN products in Mobile Congress event, only operator engaged in this new technology was India's Reliance Jio. Cisco joined xRAN Foundation, a consortium formed in 2016. And it should be noted that in November, 2017 Vodafone submitted their software-defined RAN project documentations to Telecom Infra Project (TIP). The goal of Open vRAN is to assemble an open and modular RAN architecture, based on General Purpose Processing Platforms (GPPP) and disaggregated software, that will support different use cases. In that conference, Jio's the-then-SVP, technology development and automation, Tareq Amin supported OpenRAN and vO-RAN openly. He had been a prominent global face for Jio since 2013 i.e. since the inception of Jio inside Reliance Industries. Later Amin left Jio in May 2018 after placing it as no. 1 telecom operator in India and joined Rakuten.
Japanese company Rakuten was initially an e-commerce company and later turned up as technology conglomerate. Rakuten also entered in the commercial mobile business as Rakuten Mobile since January 2018. Since the beginning Rakuten was a strong supporter of OpenRAN. And here Tareq Amin fitted in Rakuten. In 2018's Rakuten Technology Conference Amin, the-then CTO announced, “We are building the world’s first end-to-end fully virtualized cloud-native network!!”
Rakuten indeed built that virtual Open RAN network in Japan. In August 2021, Rakuten Symphony was curved out from the main company, as it brings together Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP), OpenRAN software and all of Rakuten’s international telco solutions (US, India, Singapore, Europe, Middle East and Africa).
In 2021 Rakuten also acquired Altiostar, US-based global O-RAN company primarily working on OpenRAN (merged company is now SymRAN).
Rakuten’s move into the global telco platform business — with a successful reference from its mobile arm in Japan — was expected to further differentiate its position as a global leader in cloud-centric, virtualized, Open RAN-based mobile networks. German operator 1&1 also partnered with Rakuten Symphony to build Europe's first fully virtualized mobile network based on OpenRAN technology.
In March 2023, Rakuten Symphony has launched its OpenRAN Customer Experience Centre in in Weybridge, just south-west of London. It already has a cloud-based radio access network in place with tech from Symphony, NEC and Nokia. The move was to attract operators, integrators and vendors across the Europe to use the facility. Rakuten has plans to launch larger lab cum experience center in Bengaluru, India where they have major workforce.
In March, 2023, Rakuten Symphony also announced close collaboration with Supermincro Inc., a total IT solution provider for Cloud, AI/ML, storage and 5G/Edge, to bring the next generation of high-performing OpenRAN technologies to mobile operators worldwide.
OpenRAN - Everyone on Wait & Watch mode... 🚩
However globally OpenRAN was noticed, but not embraced at par with the excitement around it - analysts argue that the Japanese group has yet to prove its business model will work amid growing OpenRAN pessimism. Announced in 2021, building vRAN network for 1&1 is not going smooth. The rollout has been severely hampered by one of the major cell site construction partners, Vodafone-owned Vantage Towers (the other two are American Tower and GfTD). And apart from 1&1, Rakuten Symphony struggles to get major contracts from telecom operators outside Japan.
Also Rakuten Mobile fails to grow (market leader NTT Docomo has nearly 15x more subscribers). Amid all these, Amin left Rakuten citing family reasons in August 2023.
The abrupt departure of Amin was tagged as a major blow to OpenRAN movement. Core Analysis CEO Patrick Lopez explains Amin as emblematic of Rakuten’s market ambitions, both domestically at Rakuten Mobile and internationally at Rakuten Symphony. And Rakuten must seek the opportunity to review its strategies.
Enter Aramco Digital...
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| Aramco sponsored Formula One |
Saudi Arabia's Dhahran based ARAMCO, a state owned petroleum and natural gas company, has diversified its operations to technology. Note that Aramco is the second largest company in the world by revenue. In January 2024, Aramco formed a subsidiary - Aramco Digital to "accelerate digital transformation within the Kingdom and the MENA region". The move also seeks to keep pace with Vision 2030, which is a strategy of the Saudi government that focuses on technological progress and economic diversification.
Aramco Digital already signed agreements with Zoom (video conferencing company), Accenture (IT services firm) and Samsung Electronics. With strategic collaboration with Samsung, Aramco wants to build an industrial 5G technology ecosystem, starting with private networks, in Saudi Arabia. In January 15, 2024, Aramco Digital announced to build the country's first O-RAN development center with Intel, a chipmaker that still dominates the nascent openRAN market.
(for an update, AMD also ventured into OpenRAN. On February 13, 2024, Vodafone demonstrated an end-to-end call at Samsung Electronics' R&D lab in Korea using Samsung’s versatile, O-RAN-compliant, virtualized RAN (vRAN) software, powered by AMD EPYC™ 8004 Series processors on Supermicro’s Telco/Edge servers, supported by Wind River Studio Container-as-a-Service (CaaS) platform. )
However analysts are skeptical about OpenRAN, and Amin's attachment with a middle eastern company. Telecom vendor majors Nokia and Ericsson have been entered into the OpenRAN space and capable countries like India could make their own OpenRAN solutions. That means Aramco's ORAN solutions would see few takers worldwide.
For example, in December 2023 AT&T collaborated with Ericsson for O-RAN deployments with a plan for 70% of its wireless network traffic to flow across open-capable platforms by late 2026. AT&T at the same time cutting on Nokia. Industry insiders expect the deal with Ericsson could be of $12.5 billion for just last half of 2024.
OpenRAN - Indian Perspective
The potential of Open RAN is always appreciated by the consultants, as Ernst & Young predicted the global Open RAN market is expected to reach around $44.7 billion by 2029, from $ 4 billion in 2023, growing at a rate of 49% compounded annually. 🚀
Mavenir's India head Sanjay Bakaya is hopeful that O-RAN surge coming in the country from this year (2024). He also addresses the complexities of Indian market compared to other markets due to large user base, high population density in cities and diverse conditions in terms of temperature and terrain. Airtel and Mavenir is working to deploy O-RAN in in low revenue generating rural areas in coming days.
Ashwinder Sethi, partner at Analysys Mason. explained that Indian operators Airtel and Jio is using the higher configurations like 32T32R or 64T64R (T and R represent the number of transmitters and receivers in the unit, respectively, with numbers over 32 referring to massive MIMO antennas with lots of antennas for added capability) - OpenRAN is not very cost effective for these high configs. Hence Indian telcos are not keen to invest in a technology which is neither cost-effective and the ecosystem is also not very mature.
In October 2023, in a panel discussion of the India Mobile Congress 2023, Saurabh Mittal, VP–Standards and Industry Ecosystem at Airtel, clears that fact that they look at the performance, TCO (total cost of ownership), interworking or IoDT (interoperability and device testing) while doing OpenRAN evaluation. At the same time Airtel is engaged in OpenRAN and vRAN trials.
Jio is developing internal capabilities for openRAN, and 2026-27, when telcos start deploying 6G, is when openRAN deployment will gather pace. Jio is working with several Indian IT companies - Radisys (acquired by Jio), SignalChip, Saankhya Labs, Tejas Networks, Sterlite Technologies and VVDN Technologies. Jio is also preparing for global supply of home grown OpenRAN technology.
While Airtel and Jio are in a race to cover the whole country with 5G, third private telco, Vi (Vodafone owned) is struggling with its cash crunch. It is yet to start commercial 5G services in the country. However Vodafone Group UK, the majority stakeholder in Vi, have been tested OpenRAN in many countries. In India Vi had pilot on 5G & O-RAN with Samsung and Mavenir.
Another interesting thing in India's 5G market is it is yet to be monetized. Both Jio and Airtel are offering free 5G data to customers with 5G coverage & certain 4G plan. In short these operators are somehow confused to deploy OpenRAN on existing 5G network when the solution is not cost effective at all at this time.
BSNL, state owned fourth telco - is working with home grown companies for 4G roll out, and these companies also directly or indirectly worked on 5G and Open RAN. I believe once BSNL gets 4G mainstream, the upgrade to 5G would be very easy and it could be done over O-RAN and vRAN. It could save tax payers' money a lot.
Endpoint is every telcos incl. Indian ones are on wait-&-watch mode on Open RAN until it becomes matured, cost effective, standardized. I believe O-RAN is a tech of future, may be it could be the missing link between 5G and 6G.
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