radisys.com 17
Radisys Series — Who Disaggregated My RAN?
eBook
Chapter 4:
Open RAN - Disaggregated and Smart
In my last article in this "Who Disaggregated My RAN?" blog series, we covered the advances made by the O-RAN
Alliance to deliver an open Fronthaul specification that supports multiple ways in which the base station will
connect to the radio and ensures interoperability between various base station and radio vendors.
This new open Radio Access Network for 5G networks must not only be disaggregated to enable a multi-vendor
ecosystem; it must also be smart. The O-RAN Alliance has introduced the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) to bring
automation and intelligence to the network.
Bringing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Telecom
There has been a lot of discussions within the telecom industry to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine
Learning (ML) to the network – especially in the RAN – to support increased efficiencies and reduce operational
expenses.
For 4G networks, mobile operators approached the management of the RAN network as a manual and mechanical
process that required human intervention for network management, configuration and operations. Mobile operators
were also seeking to virtualize their networks and to add automation to reduce operational expenses.
The O-RAN Alliance, led by the mobile operator community with vendor support, proposes to achieve both
autonomous control and intelligence in the way radio networks are managed by the addition of RAN Intelligent
Controller (RIC) nodes.
The RAN network is designed to operate at extremely low latency levels – a few milliseconds or less – so it is often
defined as a "real-time network" which cannot afford any delay in the transmission of data. Operations must be
highly efficient and data transmissions must happen within predetermined time limits.
