In the very simplest of terms, a communication network is a set of interconnected nodes that exchange data. When a telco builds a mobile network, the most expensive part is the radio access network (RAN). This is the radio base station, which connects users to the core network. Telcos have traditionally used proprietary appliances in their networks. These boxes are expensive, and are only made by a handful of suppliers. It’s also worth remembering that telco networks have to be extremely reliable, with very little downtime, perhaps just 30 seconds a year. The networks also have to be able to handle the scale; imagine if most of South Africa’s 54 million-odd cellphone users are all on the line? A couple of years ago, the industry began to virtualise its network services. This is known as network functions virtualisation (NFV). Telcos are now able to use virtual machines for some services, such as routers, firewalls, caching, for example, and these can be run on standard, non-proprietary servers. Now, the radio access network is being virtualised, and this is known as Open RAN. It’s a complicated area, and is awash in an alphabet soup of acronyms, which is one reason why Brainstorm assembled a panel of industry experts to make sense of it all.

At the outset, it may also be worth dealing with the nomenclature: O-RAN refers to the ORAN Alliance standards body, which is working on the Open RAN specifications. Then there’s OpenRAN, which is the way the collaborative industry group the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) prefers to write it. Finally, there’s vRAN, which stands for virtualised radio access networks, which allows telcos to run their baseband functions as software. Open RAN also opens the door to 5G, but as Anthony Laing, GM: Networking, at NEC XON, says, a lot of people mention Open RAN and 5G in the same breath, yet they’re actually different technologies. Telcos and mobile operators will typically pick one, two, or, if they’re brave, three vendors, and then they’d be locked into using their equipment, he adds.