“Hyperscale cloud providers like Amazon and Google are potential players in the ORAN ecosystem”

Sandeep Gupta, Executive Vice President and Chief Architect Network at Airtel is the thought leader and nodal points person overseeing the OpenRAN trials at Airtel. He has a granular understanding of technology and mobile networks. And his deep insights into the Radio Network space are unparalleled. This is important because this is unexplored territory and new paradigms are emerging due to the old and the new RAN platforms having to co-exist (at least for the time being). In a chat with Voice & Data, he shares his thoughts on the key metrics for the rollout.

Is the Airtel ORAN solution the same as a Multi-Vendor Ran

Multi-vendor RAN and ORAN has different connotations in different contexts.

Open-RAN is all about openness in the architecture, interoperable interfaces, and the capability to build RAN using components from different vendors — if we choose to do that.

Therefore, it would possibly have multiple partners providing their respective sub-systems or building blocks for the deployment of the ORAN site.

Multi-vendor RAN, on the other hand, often is referred to RAN deployment where there are multiple vendors involved in site rollout, with each of the vendors bringing in their respective monolithic or vertical RAN solutions.

Such an approach has been adopted in the past to accommodate different RAN vendors for different geographical territories or to split different radio layers of the same site among different RAN partners.

There continue to be concerned about the radio propagation side in OpenRAN deployments. How will Airtel resolve the RF Engineering aspects.

We are taking multiple steps to ensure that RF engineering and performance are consistent and best in class either in ORAN or monolithic RAN deployments. For the ORAN solution, a comprehensive set of radio performance and conformance is being carried out in our lab using a test environment provided by partners like Keysight, Viavi, and others.

Radio coverage is being validated in the field during the 5G trials. We are benchmarking RF performance of the ORAN solution with the traditional RAN deployments.

Radio propagation and its performance is an integral part of the ORAN solution. It cannot be treated in isolation with ORAN solution but is an integral outcome of the performance of ORAN software & hardware. In fact, ORAN architecture is working on qualifying radio performance and building AI/ML capabilities to optimize radio coverage & capacity based on clutter and traffic distribution of the site.

This is one of the use cases identified for the non-real-time RIC platform introduced by ORAN architecture.

Radio coverage is being validated in the field-based during the 5G trials, where we are benchmarking the RF performance of the ORAN solution with the traditional RAN deployments. Real-time performance and reliability of cloud OS are critical for optimized performance of radio networks. Cloud OS partners are working on bringing lower latency in host and guest OS, especially in DU deployments. This is an important part of our validation process beyond physical radio layer performance.

We are building converged platforms and operational workflow for RF engineering and optimization across both ORAN and traditional RAN deployments.

Amazon and Google Cloud are now moving into this space.

Hyperscale cloud providers like Amazon and Google are potential players in the ORAN ecosystem.

Their scale of cloud deployments and automation can be leveraged for building best-in-class infrastructure for ORAN sites. These players are working on building cloud hardware, software and automation optimized. The infra layer is completely interoperable with the ORAN gNB / eNB container functions.

Finally, with ORAN, multiple vendors, and COTS — who will the operator depend on for support, maintenance, and servicing. Will it be an operator function?

One of the factors for the success of ORAN deployments would be the seamless lifecycle and operations being carried out for traditional RAN networks. For the user, there will be no difference. Keeping this in perspective, we are integrating ORAN sites with our existing operations framework and tools and the other way around as well. Any tool especially SMO for ORAN would also apply to traditional RAN sites.

Overall, we would have our tools, data analytics, and operational framework for operations, maintenance and lifecycle services. Our system integration partners would be responsible to stitch the solution and its lifecycle (such as upgrades and updates).

Sandeep Gupta

Executive Vice President and Chief Architect Network, Airtel

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