A comprehensive survey of Open RAN technology and its ecosystem

In Open RAN: The Definitive Guide, a team of distinguished industry leaders deliver an authoritative guide to all four principles of the Open RAN vision: openness, virtualization, intelligence, and interoperability. Written by the industry experts currently defining the specifications, building the systems, and testing and deploying the networks, the book covers O-RAN architecture, the fronthaul interface, security, cloudification, virtualization, intelligence, certification, badging, and standardization.

This critical reference on Open RAN explains how and why an open and disaggregated, intelligent, and fully virtualized network is the way networks should be designed and deployed moving forward. Readers will also find:

• A thorough introduction to contributions from key industry players, including AT&T, Telefonica, Mavenir, VMWare, Google and VIAVI
• Comprehensive explorations of Open X-Haul transport networks and other unique 5G capabilities
• Practical discussions of the four pillars of O-RAN architecture: openness, virtualization, intelligence, and interoperability
• Comprehensive treatments of how smaller vendors can introduce their own services and customize the network

Perfect for executives, engineers, product managers, and marketing professionals in the telecom industry, Open RAN: The Definitive Guide will also benefit graduate students, researchers, and engineers in government agencies with involvement in the wireless and telecom industries.

Ian Wong, PhD, is Director of RF and Wireless Architecture at VIAVI Solutions. He is co-chair of the Test and Integration Focus group in the O-RAN Alliance and a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Aditya Chopra, PhD, is a communication systems engineer with over 10 years' experience in wireless standards and transceiver design.

Sridhar Rajagopal, PhD, is a SVP and Senior Fellow at Mavenir Systems, where he leads customer engineering and radio integration for Mavenir's Open RAN products. He has co-invented around 50 issued US patents and is a senior member of IEEE.

Rittwik Jana, PhD, is currently a Telco analytics and automation engineer at Google. He is an industry expert with over 25 years of experience in numerous wireless technologies and standards.

About the Authors

Foreword – Author: Mehmet Toy, Verizon

1.            Evolution of RAN

Author: Sameh Yamany, VIAVI Solutions

                ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

1.1.         Introduction

1.2.         RAN Architecture

1.2.1.     The 2G RAN

1.2.2.     The 3G RAN

1.2.3.     The 4G/LTE RAN

1.2.4.     The 5G RAN

1.3.         The Case for Open RAN

1.4.         6G and The Road Ahead

1.5.         Conclusion

1.6.         Bibliography

2.            Open RAN Overview

Author: Rittwik Jana, Google

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

2.1.         Introduction

2.2.         Open RAN Architecture

2.3.         Open RAN cloudification

2.4.         RAN Intelligence

2.5.         Fronthaul Interface and Open Transport

2.6.         Securing Open RAN

2.7.         Open source software

2.8.         RAN automation and deployment with CI/CD

2.9.         Open RAN Testing

2.10.      Industry Organizations

2.11.      Conclusion

2.12.      Bibliography

3.            O-RAN Architecture

Authors: Rajarajan Sivaraj and Sridhar Rajagopal, Mavenir

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

3.1.         Introduction

3.1.1.     General Description of O-RAN functions

3.1.2.     RAN Intelligent Controller and Service

3.1.3.     Interfaces

3.2.         Near-RT RIC architecture

3.3.         Non-RT RIC architecture

3.4.         SMO architecture

3.5.         Other O-RAN functions and open interfaces

3.6.         Conclusion

3.7.         Bibliography

4.            Cloudification and Virtualization

Authors: Padma Sudarsan, VMWare; Sridhar Rajagopal, Mavenir

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

4.1.         Introduction

4.2.         Openness and disaggregation with vRAN

4.3.         Cloud Deployment scenarios

4.3.1.     Private, public and hybrid cloud

4.3.2.     Telco Features required for “Any Cloud”

4.3.3.     On premise, far edge, edge and central deployments

4.3.4.     Classical, VMs, Containers and hybrid deployments

4.4.         Unwinding the RAN monolith

4.5.         Orchestration, management and automation as key to success

4.6.         Conclusion

4.7.         Bibliography

5.            RAN Intelligence

Authors: Rajarajan Sivaraj, Mavenir; Dhruv Gupta, AT&T; Rittwik Jana, Google

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

5.1.         Introduction

5.2.         Challenges and opportunities in building intelligent networks

5.3.         Background on machine learning life cycle management

5.4.         ML driven intelligence and analytics for Non-RT RIC

5.5.         ML driven intelligence and analytics for Near-RT RIC

5.6.         E2 Service Models for Near-RT RIC

5.7.         ML algorithms for Near-RT RIC

5.8.         Near-RT RIC platform functions for ML/AI training

5.9.         RIC use cases

5.10.      Conclusion

5.11.      Bibliography

6.            Fronthaul Interface

Author: Aditya Chopra, Amazon Kuiper LLC

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

6.1.         Introduction

6.2.         The Lower-Layer Split RAN

6.3.         Option 8 Split – CPRI and eCPRI

6.4.         Option 6 Split – FAPI and nFAPI

6.5.         Option 7 Split – O-RAN ALLIANCE Open Fronthaul

6.6.         Conclusion

6.7.         Bibliography

7.            Open Transport

Authors: Reza Vaez-Ghaemi, VIAVI Solutions; Luis Manuel Contreras Murillo, Telefonica

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

7.1.         Introduction

7.2.         Requirements

7.2.1.     Fronthaul Requirements

7.2.2.     Midhaul Requirements

7.2.3.     Backhaul Requirements

7.2.4.     Synchronization Requirements

7.3.         WDM Solutions

7.3.1.     Passive WDM

7.3.2.     Active WDM

7.3.3.     Semi-Active WDM

7.4.         Packet-switched Solutions

7.4.1.     Technology Overview

7.4.2.     Deployment Patterns

7.4.3.     Connectivity service and protocols

7.4.4.     Quality of Service

7.5.         Management and control interface

7.5.1.     Control and management architecture

7.5.2.     Interaction with O-RAN management

7.6.         Synchronization Solutions

7.6.1.     Synchronization Baseline

7.6.2.     Synchronization Accuracy and Limits

7.7.         Testing

7.8.         Conclusion

7.9.         Bibliography

8.            Open RAN Security

Author: Amy Zwarico, AT&T

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

8.1.         Introduction

8.2.         Zero Trust Principles

8.3.         Threats to Open RAN

8.3.1.     Stakeholders

8.3.2.     Threat Surface and Threat Actors

8.3.3.     Overall Threats

8.3.4.     Threats against the Lower Layer Split (LLS) architecture and Open Fronthaul interface

8.3.5.     Threats against O-RU

8.3.6.     Threats against Near and Non Real Time RICs, xApps, and rApps

8.3.7.     Threats against Physical Network Functions (PNF)

8.3.8.     Threats against SMO

8.3.9.     Threats against O-Cloud

8.3.10.   Threats to the Supply Chain

8.3.11.   Physical Threats

8.3.12.   Threats against 5G Radio Networks

8.3.13.   Threats to Standards Development

8.4.         Protecting Open RAN

8.4.1.     Securing the O-RAN Defined Interfaces

8.4.2.     Securing the O-Cloud

8.4.3.     Container Security

8.4.4.     O-RAN Software Security

8.4.5.     Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)

8.5.         Recommendations for Vendors and MNOs

8.6.         Conclusion

8.7.         Bibliography

9.            Open RAN Software

Authors: David Kinsey, AT&T; Padma Sudarsan, VMWare; Rittwik Jana, Google

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

9.1.         Introduction

9.2.         O-RAN Software Community (OSC)

9.2.1.     SMO

9.2.2.     Near-RT RIC

9.2.3.     O-CU-CP and O-CU-UP

9.2.4.     O-DU

9.2.5.     O-RU

9.2.6.     O-Cloud

9.2.7.     Supporting projects: SIM, DOC, INT

9.3.         Open Network and Automation Platform (ONAP)

9.3.1.     Netconf/YANG support

9.3.2.     Configuration Persistence

9.3.3.     VES Support

9.3.4.     A1 Support

9.3.5.     Optimization Support

9.4.         Other Open Source Communities (add Nephio here)       

9.5.         Conclusion - missing

9.6.         Bibliography - missing

10.          Open RAN Deployments

Author: Sidd Chenumolu, DISH Networks

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

10.1.      Introduction

10.2.      Network Architecture

10.3.      Network Planning and Design

10.4.      Network Deployment

10.5.      Conclusion

10.6.      Bibliography

11.          Open RAN Test and Integration

Author: Ian Wong, VIAVI Solutions

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

11.1.      Introduction

11.2.      Testing Across the Network Lifecycle

11.3.      O-RAN ALLIANCE Test and Integration Activities

11.4.      Conclusion

11.5.      Bibliography

12.          Other Open RAN Industry Organizations

Authors: Aditya Chopra, Amazon Kuiper; Manish Singh, Dell; Prabhakar Chitrapu, SCF; Luis Lopes, Qualcomm; Diane Rinaldo, ORPC

ABSTRACT and KEYWORDS

12.1.      Introduction

12.2.      Telecom Infra Project

12.3.      Small Cell Forum (SCF)

12.4.      Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)

12.5.      Open RAN Policy Coalition

12.6.      Conclusion

12.7.      Bibliography