The RIC is key to Open RAN network programmability and automation
Looking past the TCO benefits associated with Open RAN, the real value operators are chasing (and vendors are working to prove out and monetize) has to do with new, innovative ways of operating disaggregated networks. There’s consensus that, with regard to Open RAN, the real innovative potential sits in the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC). A good analogy–potentially coined by Baker–is like an app store where operators can select particular xApps and rApps that turn network telemetry into potential actionable steps for various types of optimizations.
And getting to that goal will also be the result of innovation, according to Picocom President Peter Claydon. “As we’re seeing a great increase in complexity with 5G…being able to manage that complexity across different vendors is certainly an area where we can get innovation,” he said. To the RIC, “This provides a common interface to the RAN. So I think that’s an area where I think we see things happening.”
The coming rise of Open RAN app developers
xApps and rApps are network automation tools. They maximize the radio network’s operational efficiency. rApps are specialized microservices operating on the non-real-time RIC. xApps and rApps provide essential control and management features and functionality. xApps are hosted on the near-real-time RIC and optimize radio spectrum efficiency.
The non-real-time RIC operates from within the RIC’s Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) framework. This software functions centrally on the operator’s network. The non-real-time RIC communicates with the near-real-time RIC’s counterpart applications, called xApps, to provide policy-based guidance.
The SMO supports open software interfaces to facilitate rApp communications. This open design keeps RAN software vendors from locking down network features. Operators can and should update and optimize the network automation software continuously as part of a DevOps process.
O’Donnell from Viavi Solutions referred to the RIC as “the playground” of Open RAN where new players with specialized skills, xApp and rApp developers for instance, will come to the fore. “We’re seeing research institutes, we’re seeing universities, we’re seeing startups who don’t have the background in telecoms because they don’t need to for some of the xApps and rApps that are being developed. One example would be energy saving or an energy consumption saving xApp—when do you switch off the transmitter, when can you power down cells, when can you switch users to different frequencies and take down part of the cell so you can have energy savings.”
Translating Open RAN data into improved customer experience
BT’s Chris Simcoe, director of Network Applications Architecture, said the operator “is very keen on what we can get out of the RIC.” But he noted that using software-based intelligence in the lab is very different from doing it in the real world; he gave the example cell anomaly detection. “You try and do those things in the lab with simulators, you just don’t get the behavior of actual people…And to that extent, I think that the intelligence and automation we can come up with may actually turn out to be very different in different countries based on user behavior.”
Looking bigger picture at what the ability to understand and action on granular user behavior in specific service areas, Simcoe called it “a real opportunity to tune the optimization very much down to those differences we see in user experience, not just urban, rural, that sort of thing, but very much based on user behavior that we see from our customers.”
Beyond the RIC, he circled back to infrastructure-driven efficiencies that Open RAN can enable. “Whenever we disaggregate things,” Simcoe said, “we can potentially change the topology of the network. And usually that’s where we get gains in changing the cost structure of things as we roll out new technologies.”
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