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Objective:

This session will focus on the true benefits of OpenRAN and the challenges for OpenRAN, as industry builds more flexible, efficient and secure 5G mobile networks.

Introduction:

Open networks are the key to driving network evolution in the 5G era and Telefónica group has a target to reach 50% radio network growth based on OpenRAN, by 2025 based on multi-vendor-based OpenRAN solutions; and is said to undeniably be the key to driving network evolution in the 5G era starting with at least 800 sites for commercial use, in 2022. This session will focus on OpenRAN benefits and the challenges for Open RAN as industry builds more flexible, efficient and secure 5G mobile networks.

Executive Speakers:

• Juan Carlos Garcia - SVP, Technology Innovation and Ecosystems, Telefonica

• Patrick Lopez - Global VP, Product Management - 5G, NEC

Transcription

Abe Nejad: Open networks are the key to driving network evolution in the 5G era, and Telefonica is deploying OpenRAN live pilots in four global markets as a key milestone towards mass deployment. This initial deployment includes open 5G, Massive MIMO radio units with advanced beamforming that helps to increase and optimize network capacity. NEC is developing a complete set of solutions to deliver a cutting edge OpenRAN that goes from the award-winning Massive MIMO to OpenRAN [Inaudible] vendor ready for scale deployments in dense urban environments. That's open DUCUs, telco-cloud, domain orchestration, and system integration.

Joining us are Telefonica's Juan Carlos Garcia, he is senior vice president of technology and innovation and ecosystems. We also have Patrick Lopez, he's global VP of product management and 5G at NEC, and gentlemen welcome.

Patrick Lopez: Thank you.

Abe Nejad: The session title for today is OpenRAN coming live. Juan Carlos, I'm gonna start with you. What are the key drivers for the network evolution in the 5G era? Really with your goal of opening 800 OpenRAN sites for commercial use, that's starting, next year in 2022.

Juan Carlos: Well, that's a good question. As you know 5G is bringing a lot of new technical capabilities. I don't want to repeat them once again because you all know, but in order to afford the cost of its deployment and operation of the increasing complexity it brings, it requires [Inaudible 01:39 ] transformation of the mobile network design and operation [Inaudible 01:43 ]. As you represent a transformation of all level domains from the radio to the data centers, a change in the implementation approach towards cloud-based solutions, and the incorporation of new layers. [Inaudible 01:54] layer the orchestration, [Inaudible 01:56] et cetera, that brings additional complexity and requires the replacement or transformation of most of the latest infrastructure on platforms and the corresponding management systems.

The drivers for the acceleration of the 5G rollout are twofold on one side, the development of services and use cases that can pay for the investment effort. And second, the availability of a new model that allows the deployment and operation of the 5G capabilities in an efficient way. The second is of extreme relevance as the 5G rollout may not be afforded based on traditional models. OpenRAN contributes to making a more efficient deployment of radio capacity and governance. The [Inaudible 02:40 ] of the network systems will help to benefit from IT scale in some components, increase competition in others, and allow to fine-tune the system to the actual needs and requirements, avoiding extra features that are not required.

The introduction of a new disaggregated system goes through a number of phases. The first one that we have already gone through is functional and traditional testing. Then we are working the lab and field trials. We have already gone through this, phase with multiple target markets. a second one in which we are now entering consistent checking the behavior of the RAN system in a production environment, I think, and the consolidation of the processes and tools to deploy and operate it in an industrial way. This is absolutely necessary for the final phase of a ScaleOut and implies as well to adapt processes and organizations ensuring the right skills in partners and in our own technicians and to change the mindset of the company towards a new operating model.

Abe Nejad: Patrick, anything to add on the evolution for, OpenRAN and the 5G era.

Patrick Lopez: well first I want to congratulate, Telefonica for, choosing to go ahead and deploying open, RAN at scale, in a commercial environment. I think it's proof that the technology is ready, that it is mature and that it can be deployed, in dense urban environments, the same as per urban, and rural, and that it can serve a variety of use cases. From my perspective, I think that the important point, in, what Carlos was mentioning here is that, 5G is not business as usual. We are going to see because 5G is, a more intelligent network, a more cloud-based network, needs for adaptation, from an operation standpoint on how to deploy, how to manage, those networks, on a day to day basis. And it is smart, for Telefonica to be deploying it, in those commercial trials because, they understand that this space is necessary, to, adapt, the operational model, before rollout, at scale. So, I think, this is, the right way to proceed, for the deployment of, new technology, cloud [Inaudible 05:02] 5G, and OpenRAN.

Abe Nejad: So Patrick, I'm gonna stay with you. So in order to evolve open, RAN, are there any really specific components you think are necessary to evolve, for OpenRAN to be on par or even better in some use cases compared with some traditional networks?

Patrick Lopez: Well I think that we're seeing, now that, OpenRAN in some areas, has reached and even exceeded, traditional vendors and traditional network capabilities. you're seeing that, NEC has deployed, OpenRAN, Massive MIMO, beamforming capabilities, in dense urban environment in Japan, for instance, with, figures in term of, performance as well as in terms of, affordability that are exceeding traditional networks. So we're looking forward to roll that out at scale, globally. And certainly, I think every, element of the value chain, has to contribute to make that possible, from, a company perspective. We know that, for OpenRAN, to be able to reach, its full capacity, you need to have high-level acceleration, particularly for high, massive MIMO and informing capabilities such as 32 transmitters and receptor or 64 transmitters and receptors.

So certainly the Chipset vendors and the Silicon vendors have their role play there, to bring ASIC and FPGA, that are high performance, but also that are cost-effective. And that are commercial off the shelf that are now adapted and specific, to, specific, hardware, implementation. So that's, one point and, another point is, OpenRAN Alliance, has done a great job of defining a number of interfaces and elements within OpenRAN. Some of those, like [Inaudible 07:07 ], near real-time [Inaudible 07:08 ] and non-real-time [Inaudible07:08 ] are being deployed or either being developed right now. It’s really important that those, benefit from open APIs and that vendors implement open APIs without, any customization, so that we can, as an industry benefit from the development of, our apps and ex apps that will be agnostic from the underlying infrastructure. And that's where we believe the benefits of, having an optimized network will come from because being able in real-time to manage, the radio, software, and to manage the connectivity is going to depend on these capabilities.

So, at NEC we're a strong advocate of open network disaggregated network and providing, a multi-vendor environment that is able to basically adapt, to the network conditions but also to the use cases.

Abe Nejad: So Juan Carlos, let's go back to you, OpenRAN represents a new paradigm for the network architecture, but it also implies a new model for operating disaggregated networks. In your opinion, is there a significant change in this operating model, and are their new roles required in the supply chain?

Juan Carlos: You're right about that [Inaudible08:22 ] The traditional architecture was based on monolithic black boxes, where the whole network system was delivered by a single provider together with a full set of tools to deploy and operate it. The integration of the network systems brings a lot of benefits that I mentioned earlier, but it also poses some difficulties for operators. in an open disaggregated system there may be multiple providers supplying different components, and the management elements need to follow standard methods supported by technology agnostic, operating support systems, usually based on open source solutions that already were applied in the IT world only this way, such a heterogeneous disoriented environment will be manageable.

this means that the integration work done previously by a single, original equipment manufacturer to deliver the system needs now to be done by the operator itself or in many cases, my specialized partner, the system integrators that will be in charge of connecting not only the social components, among them, but also all the management tools for deployment, configuration, operation, and management. So that the combined system becomes manageable when it gets scaled. This specialized system in integration needs to bring the knowledge, skills, and practices in hardware, software-network, and cloud technologies. And this is the reason why system integrators are playing a new and key role in the new open disaggregated networks.

Abe Nejad: Patrick, anything to add before we move on?

Patrick Lopez: Absolutely. Just to, echo what, Juan Carlos, said, we believe that system integration capabilities and professional services are key, to be able to deploy, operate, and maintain, efficiently, the new 5G networks, opening disintegrated networks. And it's not just, for the RAN and the OpenRAN. It is, also for the transport disaggregated transport as for the core and the orchestration and, management of the overall systems. From that perspective, NEC has heavily invested in creating, capabilities in that space. Really the company has been able to do a lot of system integration already, in a number of networks, for OpenRAN and for core and for transport. And basically, we believe that because a lot of disaggregated networks are also cloud-native, it is necessary to really merge, all those dimensions. being able to do system integration, at the network level, and therefore knowing, telecoms network very well, being able to do system integration at the cloud layer, because a lot of those networks, benefit from an FDI, or a cloud fabric, that is integrated, within, those capabilities.

And the last, element is being able to do SI at the IT layer, because, you need to be able to operate, and manage, those, infrastructure, physical and virtual infrastructure. and the complexity that was, mentioning, Juan Carlos as well off come from the fact that as you have an opening disaggregated network, all of a sudden you have more options in term of where to deploy what kind of functions. So you can deploy them, not only in your centralized data center, which was the traditional models, but you have, different edge locations in which you can deploy some of those functions. And as well, those edge locations can host, maybe infrastructure that you're not managing yourself that can be managed by cloud providers.

And as we're talking about cloud providers, the cloud itself, the public cloud itself is starting also to host, telecom function.  So being able to manage a complexity of, not only deploying but managing, all of, those different elements and all of those different workloads in those different locations, we think that's key to the success of 5G. And, that's why we have, developed archetype for, continuous integration, continuous development, and continuous testing, of our solutions, but not only our solutions, the solutions of our ecosystem to, move to multi-vendor environments across those different, network locations.

Abe Nejad: So Patrick, I'm gonna stay with you, and you just touched on this in a few areas, if you can get a little more granular into NEC's portfolio and how it's evolving to really embrace this, these new opportunities around OpenRAN.

Patrick Lopez: Certainly. So when we started OpenRAN, about three years ago, I believe, we rapidly found out as we deployed the first systems that, the, opening disaggregated nature of OpenRAN, lends itself very well to have a multi-vendor environment. Multi-vendor environment that run concurrently. But as Juan Carlos was mentioning, in the past, you had a single vendor that was selling and deploying a single environment, and now you are deploying an environment that has different, elements to it, managed by different vendors. So that comes with new layer of complexity. and we had to live through that complexity when we did our first, commercial deployments, and learning from that, we have built, tools, as well as, methodologies, and capabilities to, not only, deploy, but also manage this, in day0, day1, and day2, operations, and those capabilities have been ramped up basically to provide a coherent system, for managing those environments at scale.

And because NEC, is a product company. We have a number of product in that field. We have radio units, as we mentioned Massive MIMO, we are bringing to market RAN software as well. Next year, we, we recently announced that, but we also have, a core network. We also have capabilities in transport, and importantly as well, Netcracker is a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC and provides world living capabilities in orchestration and automation. Together with, a strong practice in [Inaudible 15:06 ] and cloud development. So altogether, if you will, NEC's target is to provide environments end to end to facilitate 5G open and disaggregated environments in a truly multi-vendor environment.

So we are a product company, but we are not pushing for our products to be the central parts of any solution. We work with a number of vendors in that space, and, we, allow, our customers to select, and pick, the vendors and the solution that fits their purpose, specifically. Because we believe that no single vendor can provide all the capabilities, in order to enable all the 5G use cases. So we really are passionate about enabling a network, a 5G network, that's an open 5G network.

Abe Nejad: So Juan Carlos, along the same lines. So Telefonica has a target of reaching 50% radio network growth based on, OpenRAN that by 2025. With multi-vendor-based OpenRAN solutions. This scale for, the OpenRAN rollout will require a cloud environment at the edge. So what are the requirements of OpenRAN at the edge and how will really edge business development benefit from the virtualization of the radio access network?

Juan Carlos: Okay. Let me say a few words about that and well you know why the existing  [Inaudible 16:34 ] practices are the basis for the rollout of most of the new, network technologies. And here I include 5G, but also FTTH the new generation of, so defined transport. They need to be adapted to the network requirements to fit into a smaller floor space and lower power that we have in the network facilities, the different operation conditions. In some cases, we don't have 24 by seven onsite operation in these locations. And in general, to a smaller scale that is available at the edge.

On the other hand, we also have the network functions that have specific requirements like latency, Synchronization, massive signaling privacy resiliency that needs to be addressed by the underlying hardware that in some cases require acceleration as Patrick mentioned, and also by tools to manage an orchestra simultaneously the physical servers, the digital machines, the containers, and the applications that run on top.

All these needs to be light in order to adapt to a highly distributed network of nodes that has a smaller computing capacity. So we cannot apply the same tools that we have for the high-scale data centers and that is clear. on the other hand, this new digital environment of machines and containers will be needed at the edge for the new 5G and FTTH technologies, and can also be the [Inaudible18:00 ] environment for operator services. And as well as for technical, sorry, external applications of business customers, and other partners. 5G and other network technologies, may be a significant tenant that may pay part of the expenses of this edge transformation. And I think this is an advantage that operators have in front of other competitors at the edge.

Abe Nejad: Juan Carlos, I'm gonna stay with you. So what's your perspective on how technology such as automation and artificial Intelligence will really be relevant in this evolution towards OpenRAN?

Juan Carlos: Well the new disaggregated technology needs to come from the one with a data driven operation model strongly assisted by artificial intelligence and machine learning. With an end target of reaching [Inaudible 18:50 ] networks. And why is this? And this is because the increasing complexity of the networks that with [Inaudible 18:57 ] disaggregation is only magnifying requires a new approach to the network operation with human operators being highly assisted by data and artificial intelligence. another factor also for the need for this automation and artificial intelligence is the variety of 5G services that may result in a not so [Inaudible 19:17 ] behavior of the network without traffic that may change, in hours. So we will only be able to control and adapt the network to this dynamic behavior of the 5G network using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

 This of course, may require new partnerships and collaboration. And we have some examples. One is in this [Inaudible 19:39 ] the consortium for the development of the data economy and the artificial intelligence that we have recently launched in Spain with over eight big Spanish companies from the industrial sector. We need talent tools and platforms to make this digital transformation possible. And, that drives us to new collaboration models with new partners. Another example is for the collaboration with other operators that, we are running, at the telecom [Inaudible 20:05 ] to promote the open disaggregated solutions and the mechanisms for the automation. Covering not just, the development and integration of these systems, but also the necessary training certification and testing for, both the open solutions and all the automation mechanisms that they need to bring.

Abe Nejad: Patrick, automation, AI, anything to add?

Patrick Lopez: So I mentioned Netcracker earlier, the company is, a leading, supplier of capabilities in the area of automation and orchestration. And I want to point out here that there is a promise, for 5G that is to be fulfilled through slicing end to end slicing. Which is basically, the ability to create, end-to-end deterministic capabilities and connectivity products, which will be able to adapt to different use cases. So you might think of a slice for, holograms and for like 8K, or 16K video, you might think of a slice for, augmented reality, a slice for autonomous vehicles. And you can think of hundreds of slices like that. So in order to manage those slices, you need to be able to orchestrate, at every layer, and across every domain, the capabilities of the network. you need to be able from the core to the transport, all the way to the access, whether this access is, cellular radio or fixed, the capability to, have a single, pane of control, to be able to synchronize the elements between those, different players. And that's what we're, proposing to do, basically.

We’re proposing to have an orchestration model, an automation model that allows and facilitate the synchronization of the different layers, as well as across the different domains, so that you can have true slicing and true slicing that is end to end, and that allows to have predictive, capabilities and layers. at the same time, also our vision is that in the future, you'll be able to create dynamic slices on demand, and we believe that it might be, a great opportunity for operators to be able to sell connectivity services to enterprise, in a dynamic fashion where you don't necessarily just have access to two or three slices, but basically, the enterprise will be able to log in into the operator console and, really, create, the slices based on parameters that will be available to them. So that's the vision that we have and that we are trying to enable throughout, our products. And that means, that we are bringing to bear, some of the world-leading capabilities that, NEC has developed within machine learning, and artificial intelligence. These are, capabilities that we have developed in other industries, and we're bringing to 5G.

Abe Nejad: So Juan Carlos on that point, as far as automation goes, of course, Telefonica is implementing various OpenRAN use cases at the newly established, technology and automation lab that in Madrid. Can you tell us a little bit more about the lab?

Juan Carlos: Yeah, of course. So thanks for mentioning our new technology and automation lab. I think we haven't talk too much about it. So this is a good chance not to explain what we are cooking there. well it is true that many of the projects that we are running at the, the automation lab are already to open run and run automation using a combination of open source and [Inaudible 23:59 ] tools to cover are things like monitoring information troubleshooting of these open systems. There are also much more that is being developed and tested there. And I will give you an example. There is a line of activity, on APIs for network capabilities, exposure, and a number of services derived from its use. And here we include the network slicing that Patrick was talking about before. we are also testing, many other open technologies not like open broadband, the open optical line termination systems, open routers, and also a new generation of operating super systems based on open source components that we call, fasts [inaudible 24:45 ].

And even as standard, an open data layer that we call fast data that we use to collect and process metrics and network and device information, and be able to generate with that the learning and the models necessary for automation. We are also experimenting on data and artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies and [Inaudible 25:06 ] use cases applied to different processes in our value chain. And this include from basic things like data analytics and sites to building more complex artificial intelligence models for closed loops. We are also testing, things like television video, and Excel technologies and platforms. Some of them that have been developed by, Telefonica. And also there is a line of activity in solutions that are looking at improving network quality and customer experience. Now supported by the previously mentioned the operating support systems. And finally, the lab is also looking at developing lots of services, for fixed and mobile customers and for consuming and business segments. As an example, we are testing then 5G now that is our solution for new private 5G networks, triple-play services for, our fiber customers, and also some services on augmented reality, virtual reality that maybe oriented for the, entertainment, sector, and other applications.

Abe Nejad: Patrick, anything to add.

Patrick Lopez: Certainly so NEC is a large company. And I think, we have over 47,000 patent family actually NEC revolves around 10% of its annual revenue to research. so certainly, when we are talking about, artificial intelligence and machine learning, there is a sizeable part of our efforts that goes towards, basically advancing science in that space. And from that perspective, few people might know, but NEC is world leader in biometrics for instance, which is the ability, to detect, in real-time, visual, as well as gate patterns, from people, in order to identify them. And that is very useful, when it comes to, machine learning because being able to identify patterns and being able in real time to make decisions based on those patterns, it's something that is applicable in everywhere, in our life going forward. ''

So the company has and is continued to invest heavily in, that field. And we have announced last year, I think the creation of our center of excellence for OpenRAN, is based in the UK. And that complements, the center of excellences that we have, in Japan as well as in India. We are announcing now that we're creating another center of excellence that will be based in the US in Princeton, in New Jersey. These networks of center of excellence are helpful because they provide the capacity, not only to showcase our technology and technology of our partners in an integrated environment. but also these are labs for co-development, and we're happy to, work together, with a number of operators and to complement, the work that is being done, here by Telefonica, by providing capabilities, basically, to have a network, of labs, that can, advance, the exploration of use cases, the exploration of new technologies that will adapt to those use cases. So at a high level, I think that we're at an exciting time today when we're looking at 5G in general, and OpenRAN in particular, because we are seeing a lot of progress and a lot of innovation coming in into that field. Innovation that was much slower to happen, before opening disintegrated networks.

Abe Nejad: Yeah, actually I was Patrick, thank you. I was just gonna say that it wasn't long ago, a couple, maybe even three years back, we were talking about OpenRAN, really picking up steam. And now we're actually talking about real-world deployments of OpenRAN 5G and how automation and A.I play a role in that. So it's good to have both of you on. Juan  Carlos, I know you just got off a flight, so we appreciate you making it and giving us your time. So thank you so much for that.

Juan Carlos: Thank you

Abe Nejad: And Patrick, again, thanks for your time. And I wanna say a special thank you to NEC for supporting today's session. If it wasn't for NEC we wouldn't be doing this today, so we thank you for that. and once again for our audience, our speakers from Telefonica and NEC on today's session called OpenRAN coming live for this session on-demand on October 28th, please go to the network media group.com. So long.

For any inquiries, please email anejad@thenetworkmediagroup.com