Bharat Rakshak

"From the end of this year, telecoms providers must not buy any 5G equipment from Huawei," he told lawmakers.

The new guidelines also require all existing Huawei gear to be stripped out by the end of 2026.

The British review was triggered by new US sanctions in May that blocked Huawei's access to US chips and semi-conductors at the heart of 5G networks.

Saankhya Labs, India's leading wireless communication system and transformative technology solutions provider, has successfully demonstrated their new solutions for next generation communication technologies of 5G Broadcast and Direct to Mobile TV(DTM).

Saankhya Labs showed a technology demonstration of their patented 5G Broadcast solution at the recently concluded Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 in Barcelona, Spain from 25th to 28th February. This is the first time in the world that a 5G Broadcast solution using the convergence of Broadband and Broadcast technology has been demonstrated anywhere in the world.

5G Broadcast is the next generation communication technology that is based on the convergence of Broadcast & Broadband networks. This solution enables telecom service providers to offload video traffic from their mobile network onto the 'cellularized' broadcast network. This will help decongest mobile spectrum use by offloading the video traffic that accounts for maximum data use. This will improve usage of mobile spectrum and increase the user experience by freeing bandwidth which will help reduce call drops, increase data speeds etc.

Video traffic is the fastest growing traffic on mobile networks. World over, about 60% of mobile data usage is of video content, and this is expected to increase to over 75% by 2022. The Indian mobile market is expected to grow to more than 850 million users. 5G broadcast will help unchoke the mobile networks from this huge video traffic.

This solution not only helps the Mobile Operators to free up bandwidth and provide a superior user experience, but also will help broadcasters to monetize their broadcast spectrum by reaching millions of additional mobile subscribers.

5G Broadcast has a wide variety of applications such as, Multimedia and Entertainment including HD TV to Mobile devices, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR and AR) Services. It can be a very effective solution for Emergency Broadcast Services, Internet of Things, Various Automotive applications such as Firmware Upgrade Over the Air (FOTA), broadcast of mapping and GIS data for Driverless Vehicles, Automotive Infotainment etc.

Saankhya Labs is providing a complete solution for 5G broadcast which include:

(1) 'Cellularized' Low-power Broadcast transmitter,

(2) Mobile receiver (USB device) based on its own chipset and

(3) the analytics and decision engine software on mobile network core which enables the switching between Broadband and Broadcast networks.

At MWC 2019, Saankhya's 5G broadcast technology demonstrations generated a lot of interest among various telecom operators and broadcasters.

Apart from 5G Broadcast, Saankhya's another solution called Direct to Mobile TV (DTM), will allow mobile devices to receive terrestrial Digital TV. As more and more people are watching entertainment content on portable devices, DTM gives the option to watch Free to Air Linear TV such as Live sports, news etc on their mobile devices without buffering and without a data network.

Both the technology solutions i.e. 5G Broadcast and Direct to Mobile TV are powered by Saankhya's indigenous Pruthvi-3 Chipsets based on award winning and patented SDR architecture. Pruthvi-3 is a fully programmable multi-standard chipset that supports next generation communication standards. Pruthvi-3 chipset was launched last year in December by Hon'ble Minister of State for Communications, Shri. Manoj Sinha.

Parag Naik, Co-Founder and CEO, Saankhya Labs, said, "The majority of the content on mobile devices is in the form of videos. This exponential rise in video consumption poses a great challenge to network operators who are looking at efficient video delivery solutions. The offload of videos from broadband to broadcast under the 5G broadcast aims to resolve this issue. We at Saankhya Labs are working on several such next generation technology developments including our futuristic Cognitive RAN solution that can help build a more open and better mobile device eco system beyond 5G."

M_Joshi wrote:Britain bans China's Huawei, handing US big win

"From the end of this year, telecoms providers must not buy any 5G equipment from Huawei," he told lawmakers.

The new guidelines also require all existing Huawei gear to be stripped out by the end of 2026.

The British review was triggered by new US sanctions in May that blocked Huawei's access to US chips and semi-conductors at the heart of 5G networks.

US action led to UK's action. Hope UK's action leads to other mankor companies doing the same & Huawei's 5G gear shining in Ethiopia, NK & Napak's telecom networks..

According to US National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien, if India, the United States and some western European countries ban Chinese apps, that takes a big tool away from the espionage work or the surveillance work of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).

Ambani-led Reliance Industries has announced that it is going to enter the 5G segment in India. This was announced by the RIL’s chairman and managing director Mukesh D Ambani at the 43rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) today.

“Today, I have great pride in announcing that Jio has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch. This will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India, using 100% homegrown technologies and solutions,” said Ambani while addressing the shareholders, prospective investors, media and the general public.

Calling this a 'Made in India’ 5G solution, Ambani said this service will be ready as soon as the 5G spectrum is available in India and can be ready
for field deployment next year. Further, he assured that the upgradation from 4G to 5G will be easy.

Dedicating the launch of 5G service in India to PM Narendra Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat’s vision, Ambani also said that once it will be set up in India, the company aims to offer it to other global telecom operators. “Once Jio’s 5G solution is proven at India’s scale, Jio Platforms would be well-positioned to be an exporter to other telecom operators globally as a complete managed service,” he added.

pankajs wrote:Someone pointed out on twitter that the "who's who" of bestern tech giants taking a share in Jio "may" point to the fact that Jio is nearing a critical moment/breakthrough in it life.

Could that moment be linked to development of its own 5G tech?
Is the 5G tech developed by Jio swadeshi and its own?
Is the Jio 5G tech world class?
Is the Jio 5G tech scalable and cheap and therefore exportable?

OR, is it all linked to the market opportunity that India represents? What do beepul of the forum think?

In any case, Jio 5G tech MUST be free from Huawei/ZTE in view of the beeline the bestern tech firms have made to invest.

Jio has developed a complete 5G solution from scratch, this will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India. This will be ready for trial as a soon as 5G specturm is available & can be ready for field deployment next year: Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani

Once Jio's 5G solution is proven at India scale, Jio platforms would be well-positioned to be an exporter of 5G solutions to other telecom operators globally as a complete managed service: Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani

pankajs wrote: Jio has developed a complete 5G solution from scratch

Jio has developed a complete 5G solution from scratch, this will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India. This will be ready for trial as a soon as 5G specturm is available & can be ready for field deployment next year: Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani

Once Jio's 5G solution is proven at India scale, Jio platforms would be well-positioned to be an exporter of 5G solutions to other telecom operators globally as a complete managed service: Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani

pankajs wrote: ...So the tech may not be the differentiator therefore my question regarding quality, scalability and cost that will ultimately determine the winner. Chinese Huawei had all 3 and therefore was a potential winner. If Jio able to match or exceed on those 3 parameters it too would have a winner on its hand.

Google and Jio are partnering to build an Operating System that could power a value engineered, entry-level 4G/5G smartphone. The Jio-Google partnership is determined to make India 2G-mukt: Mukesh Ambani at #RILAGM

pankajs wrote:Someone pointed out on twitter that the "who's who" of bestern tech giants taking a share in Jio "may" point to the fact that Jio is nearing a critical moment/breakthrough in it life.

Could that moment be linked to development of its own 5G tech?
Is the 5G tech developed by Jio swadeshi and its own?
Is the Jio 5G tech world class?
Is the Jio 5G tech scalable and cheap and therefore exportable?

OR, is it all linked to the market opportunity that India represents? What do beepul of the forum think?...

pankajs wrote:^^
Someone American quite a while back pointed out the Huawei was the leader NOT because it had superior technology but because its offering were cheap and backed by financing from the Chinese state. I, myself, have no clue about the technology.

So the tech may not be the differentiator therefore my question regarding quality, scalability and cost that will ultimately determine the winner. Chinese Huawei had all 3 and therefore was a potential winner. If Jio able to match or exceed on those 3 parameters it too would have a winner on its hand.

suryag wrote:Anujan Garu sorry I disagree big time, their UE and NW are purely average grade. As I mentioned their devices work best with their network only, in comp benchmarks we did internally(these are not paid ones that some blogs put, very rigorous ones aimed at gauging our competitors' KPI) they came fourth

Explained: Amid China chill, US tech giants warm up to Jio

With the exception of Microsoft, all other firms have a stake in Jio Platforms. In effect, 27.61% of Jio is now owned by US firms.



Pranav Mukul
New Delhi
July 16, 2020


With Google on board, Jio now has business arrangements with five US technology giants

Google’s investment of Rs 33,737 crore, or $4.5 billion, in Jio Platforms takes the total money pumped into India’s largest telecom company by US-based investors to more than $16.7 billion — almost half of what India received from the US as foreign direct investment (FDI) over the last two decades.

Jio’s fundraising spree this year has also left behind the cumulative investments made in India’s technology sector in the whole of 2019, which stood at $9.36 billion.

Between April 2000 and April 2020, cumulative FDI inflows from the US stood at $29.78 billion, according to Department of Commerce data (not including investments by US-based companies routed through other jurisdictions such as Mauritius, British Virgin Islands etc.).

With Google on board, Jio now has business arrangements with five US technology giants – Facebook for a partnership of its messaging platform WhatsApp with Jio’s e-commerce venture JioMart; Microsoft for its cloud computing platform Azure; Google for building an Android-based smartphone operating system; and Intel and Qualcomm for developing new products.

With the exception of Microsoft, all other firms have a stake in Jio Platforms. In effect, 27.61% of Jio is now owned by US firms.

This assumes significance when the Indian government has signalled curbs on Chinese technology investments while banning 59 mobile apps with links to Chinese Internet majors such as Alibaba – one of the largest Chinese investors in Indian start-ups.

The first one to step in was Facebook that purchased a 9.99% stake in Jio back in April for Rs 43,573.62 crore, or $5.7 billion, becoming the biggest minority shareholder in the company.

This was followed by a series of US-based private equity firms like TPG Capital, L Catterton, General Atlantic, Silver Lake, and West Asian sovereign funds like Mubadala and ADIA of the UAE and PIF of Saudi Arabia picking up minority stakes in Jio Platforms.

Reliance Industries, of which Jio Platforms is a unit, has so far divested 32.97% stake in the telecom company for Rs 1.52 lakh crore.

In addition to Jio, other large companies in India’s Internet sector have also been flooded with American money. Seattle-based Amazon has invested $5 billion in India, with a plan of investing an additional $1 billion in its India operations announced earlier this year.

Is Reliance Jio really making its own 5G technology? Maybe! | Frontier Enterprise

John Tanner

In late February, during US president Donald Trump’s trip to India, he reportedly asked Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani if his mobile operator Reliance Jio had plans for 5G. Ambani told him that not only is Jio planning to launch 5G, it will be the only 5G network on Earth “that doesn’t have a single Chinese component.”

When Ambani said that, the assumption was that he meant Jio would not buy 5G gear from Huawei or ZTE, but would instead stick with Samsung, which also makes 5G equipment and is Jio’s current 4G supplier. Jio listed Samsung as a 5G partner when it submitted its 5G proposal to the India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

So imagine everyone’s surprise when, earlier this month, the Economic Times reported that Jio would forego vendors altogether and use its own in-house 5G technology instead.

To which analysts and telecoms industry observers around the world said: What?

From the ET report:

“We have now developed everything end-to-end around 5G technology. We are more scalable than these vendors and are fully automated since we have our own cloud-native platform. In 5G, we will totally be self-sufficient,” the person told ET.

It should be stated at this point that ET got this from an anonymous source, and that Jio hasn’t confirmed anything. But the implication is that Jio has literally developed every component it needs to build and launch a complete 5G network, from the base stations and antennas to the core network.

Which would be something.

Is it true? No one knows except Jio. Is it plausible? More than you’d think.

Cloud-native

First of all, Jio began life as an all-IP 4G network, which means it has no legacy circuit-switched 2G/3G gear to deal with or maintain. Because it’s designed for IP (or “cloud-native”, as ET’s source puts it), most everything is done in software. And, as it happens, Jio has a lot of mobile software expertise at its disposal. One of Reliance’s subsidiaries is 4G software firm Rancore Technologies, which bought acquired US-based software company Radisys in 2018.

This is perhaps the key to the puzzle, because the telecoms sector in general is moving towards an era where telecoms operations are done in software that’s decoupled from the hardware. This is after all the whole point of SDN and NFV. Moreover, as operators undergo digital transformation, more and more of them are moving some or all of their B/OSS systems to public-cloud providers like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.

As for 5G, according to a new paper from Rethink Research [PDF], the evolution roadmap for 5G eventually culminates in a cloud-native 5G core network whose functions are disaggregated and deployed in containers as microservices, and then a cloud-native radio access network (RAN), at which point operators will ditch pricey proprietary vendor hardware in favor of specialized open-source 5G software running on commodity hardware.

There are several industry groups working on this ‘Open RAN’ concept, including Facebook’s Telecom Infra Project and the operator-led O-Ran Alliance (both of whom just signed a deal last month to coordinate their activities). The basic idea is to turn base stations into white boxes running custom software. This wouldn’t cut existing 5G vendors out of the picture – it would simply force them to shift their business model from hardware to software, thus enabling open multi-vendor RAN environments.

While Open RAN is believed to still be at least a year or two away from commercial reality, Japan’s Rakuten Mobile – which, like Jio, is a greenfield cloud-native mobile network –claims to have already done it. Earlier this month, Rakuten Mobile announced it had successfully deployed a fully virtualized, cloud native, open RAN (albeit six months behind schedule), and will use it to launch 4G services in April, and will upgrade it to 5G in June.

The patent problem

So it’s possible this is what Jio more or less has in mind – in which case it arguably has the software skills to skip the 5G vendors and take the DIY route. (As for the hardware, the ET report claims Jio has designed the necessary hardware that can be manufactured by third parties.)

On the other hand, Rakuten Mobile didn’t skip vendors in favour of in-house tech – it contracted a range of vendors for equipment, software, and services. For example, Altiostar (which Rakuten owns) and Nokia are reportedly supplying the 4G antennas, while NEC will build the massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna components needed for 5G. Airspan, Cisco, Intel, Mavenir and Qualcomm are also listed as vendors.

The other thing about 5G equipment – especially when it comes to antennas and radios – is that it’s highly specialized and sophisticated technology. More to the point, it’s highly patented.

When Vietnamese operator Viettel announced last year – and again this past January – that it was going to not only deploy its own 5G hardware and software but also sell it to other operators, a number of analysts expressed doubt. Their main objection, according to the BBC, was that 5G isn’t the sort of technology you can slap together in your basement in a few months, and even if it was, you’d have to license the necessary technology from the very vendors you don’t want to buy equipment from, which would not be cheap.

In any case, we’ll find out sooner or later once Jio launches its 5G network. And it will probably be later. The DoT had hoped to auction off 5G spectrum next month, but last week it decided to delay the auction to August for an all-too-familiar reason: its spectrum prices are so high that India’s operators – who are all running on razor-thin margins in a hypercompetitive market – can’t afford it. The general expectation is that India may not see 5G services until at least the middle of next year, or even until 2022.

Plenty of time for Jio to gets its gear ready, perhaps.

Radisys Corporation is an American technologycompany located in Hillsboro, Oregon, United Statesthat makes technology used by telecommunicationscompanies in mobile networks. Founded in 1987 inOregon by former employees of Intel, the companywent public in 1995. The company's products are usedin mobile network applications such as small cell radioaccess networks, wireless core network elements, deeppacket inspection and policy management equipment;conferencing, and media services including voice, videoand data. In 2015, Radisys first-quarter revenuestotaled $48.7 million, and employed 700 people.[2]Arun Bhikshesvaran is the company's chief executiveofficer.On 30 June 2018, Indian conglomerate RelianceIndustries acquired Radisys for $74 million.

Products

Radisys supports two markets: communications networking and commercial systems.[1]The latter makes products for use in the testing, medical imaging, defense, and industrialautomation fields.[1] For example, end-products that Radisys' is a supplier to as originalequipment manufacturers include items such as MRI scanners, ultrasound equipment, logicanalyzers, and items used in semiconductor manufacturing.[1] Communications networkingequipment includes those for wireless communications, switches, distribution of video, andinternet protocol based networking equipment.[1]The company has engineering groups, working on open telecom architectures,[34]computerarchitecture and systems integration. In 2009, Radisys' biggest customers were PhilipsHealthcare, Agilent, Fujitsu, Danaher Corporation, and Nokia Siemens Network (NSN).NSN was the largest single customer, totaling over 43% of revenues.

Oommen said that the time ripe for India and US to work together to get into leveraging the disaggregation of hardware and software, and open interface and OpenRAN to create an ecosystem of scale and adoption.

"...cloud is the opportunity to bring the scale and also include the likes of Nokia and Ericsson of the world. It is important for us to accelerate the ecosystem and incentivize traditional vendors to get into open interface model to drive transformation...if we don't do that there will be friction," Oommen said

5G – The “hen” that will lay the Golden Eggs

Aayush Bhatnagar
Dec 29, 2019 · 7 min read

https://medium.com/@aayushbhatnagar_10462


It is somewhat amusing to see the emotions in the room, when the word “5G” is mentioned during industry meetings and discussions.While there are “over-enthusiasts” who see 5G as the start and end of the universe, we also have nay-sayers who feel that its over hyped and brings nothing to the table.Then we have the “wait and watch” brigade, who do not take a position, but maintain a perfect balance by muttering about the “potential” that 5G brings – and that a “lot of work” still needs to be done !5G has also given a new lease of life to the Telco ISV Marketing and Sales teams, who are applying their creativity while pitching 5G technology and software to potential clients.From connected sandwiches to low latency sleeping pills, everything seems to fit the “5G use case”.In this dynamic ecosystem, it becomes important to take a pragmatic view of what 5G means for the consumer, businesses and governments.

We have seen increasing interest in Governments regarding the deployment and ownership of 5G technology.A global geo-political race has begun for 5G supremacy – which is good for technology adoption, and provides industries with an incentive to keep investing. China and the USA are at the epicentre of this geo-political conflict for 5G dominance. While China wants to lead the adoption and development of all aspects of 5G technology, the US does not want to miss the bus and desperately wants to remain relevant. After having lost Lucent Technologies which was a network vendor (Alcatel-Lucent, which later merged into Nokia), the US is left with very limited options for indigenous network development. China on the other hand, has Huawei and ZTE as the network equipment behemoths who have a global footprint in the radio and core network segments. The US through Qualcomm and Intel dominates the chipset and server computing market. However, China has aggressive plans to counter both Qualcomm and Intel with its own R&D programs in both areas. The next 4–5 years will be interesting to watch, especially how this geo-political tussle pans out – and we may also need to watch out for 5G dark horses (maybe from India ). At the onset of 4G LTE, the “handset maturity” debate was a major cause for concern. VoLTE supported handsets took some time to come to the mass market, and even when they did – the price points were at the higher side. Even as 4G handsets took some time to proliferate the market, the situation in 5G is much better. 5G enabled handsets are coming to the market at a feverish pace. The chinese handset makers – Vivo, Oppo, Huawei, ZTE and Xiaomi are leading the charge, with Korea’s Samsung and LG not too far behind. An updated status on the availability of commercial 5G phones is covered here iPhone users (like me) will probably get a 5G iPhone in 2020 (rumoured). With the availability of cost effective handsets, adoption in the market is expected to accelerate from Q2 of 2020.

Fixed Wireless Access is the most popular early use case of 5G. It allows consumers to enjoy gigabit speeds inside the home, with no need for last mile fiber to the home. FWA accelerates 5G adoption inside the home, through an outdoor CPE device (also known as the FWA terminal). This terminal acts as a device and attaches to the network over the radio interface. An ethernet interface from the FWA terminal goes inside the home, and connects to a Wi-Fi access point to provide in-home coverage. The Wi-Fi technology which is preferred for use is Wi-Fi 6. The technology for Wi-Fi 6 is based on the 802.11ax WiFi standards which uses 1024 QAM and can provide peak speeds of 9.6 Gbps throughput. While 802.11 ac routers would also work, in order to be future proof, Wi-Fi 6 APs should be deployed with 5G FWA in order to provide the best experience. Handset manufacturers are also embedding support for Wi-Fi 6 proactively to take advantage of this standard.

While the earlier generations of radio technologies were predominantly focussed on more efficient radio spectrum usage, 5G moves beyond just radio. Having said that, 5G NR does provide improvements such as scalable numerology – which enables the use of 5G from sub 6 GHz bands to millimeter wave bands. Other features of note include Massive MIMO being the baseline for the technology, numerology multiplexing, beam sweeping and support for mini slots for lower latency (uRLLC) scheduling of traffic. However, in addition to radio, 5G encompasses the core network and agile operations as a “whole” by re-imagining the entire network architecture. The 5G core network envisions “Network Functions” which expose “Service Based Interfaces” inspired from the RESTful paradigm. The core network design also institutionalises API exposure and network discovery – enabling automation to be part of the network design.The 5G core network when deployed in Standalone Mode (SA) enables the innovative capabilities of the network. As a matter of fact, SA-mode enables network slicing, MMTC (IoT) as well as low latency services. Non-standalone mode can only deliver eMBB services. Most progressive carriers are migrating to 5G Standalone Mode starting from 2020. While NSA mode bootstrapped early deployments of 5G, it is the standalone mode which will deliver on the promise and use cases of 5G. The 5G CAPIF Architecture coupled with the 5G Network Exposure Function (NEF) will catalyse the integration of the 5G core network with vertical platforms such as those of industrial IoT, Drone control systems among many more. I had written a detailed post on the 5G core network architecture sometime back, which can be found here

The 5G network functions are envisioned to be cloud native, bringing the ETSI MANO architecture to the forefront of deployment and automation. Cloud Native NFV will be the central theme for deployment of the 5G CN microservices. Containers enable friction-less automation of network deployment, auto scaling as well as faster turnaround times for changes in the 5G network (CI/CD) Containers and Openstack based deployments can be seamlessly combined from the “Rocky” Release of Openstack. Hence, a transition option is also available for network equipment providers. Cloud native deployments are more lightweight than their hypervisor led counterparts, and hence cloud native 5G network functions would find it much easier for edge deployments – which is one of the important needs of 5G MMTC and uRLLC. Networks need to move rapidly to Cloud Native NFV, as 5G networks promise massive scaling to billions of connected things. While network equipment providers are still playing “catch up” in 2019, it is widely expected that 2020 will be the year of cloud native 5G.

5G capabilities open up interesting business opportunities and models. Some of the prominent ones are discussed below along with a tentative time “slice” indicating the gustation period after which the use case reaches an inflection point and becomes mass market. While FWA competes with last mile fibre and in certain cases “extends” fibre connectivity, it is a rapid way to acquire new homes and small enterprises. (2019–2020)Advertising may get reimagined through 5G AR/VR capabilities as the eMBB service will enable more immersive experiences both indoors and in outdoor spaces. (2020–2021) Remote Healthcare would become a reality with a blend of uRLLC and eMBB. We may not see remote surgeries for a while, but remote health assistance would become more feasible. (2020–2022) Drones would find a strong 5G backhaul to deliver services across industries – from eCommerce, to security. (2019–2020)Connected Cars would help in smart assisted driving and improve public safety on the roads by reducing the possibility of accidents. (2019–2021) Autonomous driving may completely disrupt the supply chain industry where driverless trucks can independently carry goods 24x7 on long highway routes. (2021–2023) Smart Cities would get a boost with 5G, where all electric appliances, as well as common public utilities can be connected and made “smarter” such as “smart meters” and “smart plugs”. (2021–2023)MVNO models would become more interesting with network slicing. (2020–2022)Enterprise service slices would open up disruptive use cases for the SaaS industry. (2020–2022) Edge Clouds would become ubiquitous with 5G backhaul, and would enable use cases for the PaaS and IaaS industry. (2020–2022)Home Entertainment would reach a new level of immersive experiences with VR over 5G, and challenge the cable industry into extinction. (2020) 5G robotics will automate the agriculture industry with autonomous tillers, harvesters and tractors. They will also help in routine civil maintenance such as repairs and cleaning appliances working in an automated fashion in smart cities. (2023–2026) While business models may be much more in number and in diversity, 5G will surely re-imagine and re-hash the present use cases which we see today. 5G business model success would depend upon the creation of connected ecosystems and partnerships beyond technology enablers. For telcos, it will be critical to participate in this ecosystem play, or else they risk becoming cloud native dumb pipes !If you liked this article, pls leave a comment/clap, and feel free to connect on LinkedIn

About 70 per cent of the cost to build telecom networks comes from buying Radio Access Network (RAN) equipment, including base stations, radio antennae, receivers. Until now, this was based on proprietary software and hardware supplied as an end-to-end solution by the likes of Nokia, Ericsson, and Huawei. Open RAN (O-Ran) attempts to make core network equipment vendor-neutral with disaggregation of hardware and software functions built on general purpose processors.

According to industry sources, Jio has been quietly working on the open source platform for at least two years. “Jio has had multiple teams on this project for two years at least. Its acquisition of Bengaluru-based Radisys in 2018 was part of this plan,” said an industry source.

A favorite tactic of the leviathan is to keep a watchful eye on smaller fish and gobble any that start to look dangerous. Facebook has done it repeatedly. Dodging slow-witted competition watchdogs, the social network eliminated one emerging threat with its $1 billion takeover of Instagram in 2012. Two years later, it dealt with another when it paid a jaw-dropping $19 billion for WhatsApp. Neither target did much real business at the time it was swallowed. Yet both seemed capable of hitting Facebook where it hurts.

Similar predation now looks possible in the telecom equipment sector as operators increasingly call for open RAN. This much ballyhooed "system" has become an umbrella term for technologies that tick all sorts of telco demands. Want a more software-based network? Check. Need something that's truly cloud-native? Look no further. Prefer general-purpose to customized processors? It covers that, too. Strictly speaking, though, open RAN is about replacing the interfaces used in today's radio access networks with standards that would facilitate competition. And that gives Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia – the RAN leviathans – a good reason to be suspicious.

To the open RAN community, the main technology culprit is an important interface that serves the link between radios and signal-processing equipment. Known as CPRI (for common public radio interface), this "fronthaul" interface is only half-baked, say critics. As a result of its incompleteness, a service provider is forced to buy radios and signal-processing (or baseband) products from the same vendor to avoid interoperability problems. CPRI's shortcomings, then, have been a helpful barrier to competition for the RAN giants. "That's the one specification that does need to be made open," says John Baker, the senior vice president of business development for Mavenir, one of the emerging open RAN players.

A complete, open fronthaul interface is precisely what Mavenir and its open RAN friends say they have now developed through an organization called the O-RAN Alliance, announced to the wider world at Mobile World Congress in 2018. Using this interface, instead of CPRI, vendors should theoretically be able to build more interoperable RAN products, allowing an operator to combine different suppliers in the same network.

Until now, open RAN has seemed like a pretty harmless fish in the RAN waters. In the first quarter of 2020, the technology accounted for less than 1% of the total RAN market, says Stefan Pongratz, an analyst at market-research firm Dell'Oro. Ericsson and Huawei have been dismissive, drawing attention to the relatively poor performance of open RAN technology compared with their longer established and more customized products.

But that is changing fast as service providers and even governments demand support for open RAN technology, seeing it as a potential alternative to risky suppliers like Huawei. Software advances are helping to compensate for some of open RAN's hardware limitations. During an investor update this week, Ericsson reportedly gave its strongest signal yet that it wants a major role in the open RAN market. Nokia has already opened its RAN interfaces for a commercial deployment by Japan's Rakuten. A well-informed source thinks all the equipment giants, including Huawei, have already experimented with open RAN technology behind closed doors.

This is both exciting and troubling for operators and open RAN vendors. Exciting because a commitment by Ericsson or Nokia would be a major catalyst for the market, said Alex Choi, Deutsche Telekom's senior vice president of technology and innovation, during a conversation with Light Reading earlier this year. "If they are really serious about implementing O-RAN-compliant equipment according to the operators' demands, then things will be accelerated," he said.

There may be trouble ahead
The troubling part is that Ericsson or Nokia could be to open RAN what Facebook was to Instagram and WhatsApp. Indeed, the mismatch between an open RAN startup and an equipment giant pocketing $25 billion in annual sales is so extreme that takeover activity might not even register on the regulatory radar, unless geopolitics intrudes. "We are concerned about the smaller innovators being acquired by the big vendors," Choi told Light Reading. "It could happen."

Choi drew a parallel with developments in the public cloud market. "We have only three hyperscalers in the public cloud and there used to be many more." What's more, the hyperscalers themselves could also be interested in buying open RAN developers, said the Deutsche Telekom man. Since he made those comments, Microsoft has pounced on Affirmed Networks and Metaswitch, two companies in the core network market, making a bid for an open RAN player less difficult to imagine. If it happened, the Nordic vendors would have an even greater reason to hit the takeover trail.

But acquisitions are not the only way they could stymie the open RAN challenge. Expertise in this area is hardly unavailable to them, with their combined research-and-development budget of almost $9 billion last year. Even if they are not the most active participants in the O-RAN Alliance, they control the CPRI specification and its e-CPRI successor, along with Huawei and Japan's NEC, and already have a complete standard they have kept secret, according to Mavenir's Baker. "Between themselves they filled the specification out, but publicly it has 200 parameters missing," he says. "Among the four of them they know exactly what they are doing and so they can essentially control this thing."

A future price war triggered by open RAN could finish off smaller players that lack muscular supporters. Perhaps partly to prevent that as well as an unwelcome takeover, Rakuten and Spain's Telefónica have made investments in Altiostar, one of Mavenir's rivals. The Telecom Infra Project (TIP), a Facebook-led association promoting open network technologies, is also providing financial support for startups through facilities it calls TIP Ecosystem Acceleration Centers (or TEACs). Choi thinks the O-RAN Alliance could "do something similar" to help new firms developing O-RAN-compliant products.

Even so, one scenario is that some open RAN vendors simply usher in new technology and drive down prices before they are swallowed up or collapse, leaving today's dominant RAN vendors weakened but still in control. This might not bother service providers if it boosts competition and makes them less reliant on individual suppliers. And provided they can make a profit, Ericsson and Nokia would naturally prefer a diminished role to being dumped by customers zealous about open RAN.

"Despite being a provider of what is a hardware platform and radio, Nokia is making a very healthy margin on this account," says Tareq Amin, Rakuten Mobile's chief technology officer, about the Finnish vendor's role in his open RAN network. "There is a way for existing incumbents to make this revenue because we want them to survive in this world." Nokia, specifically, is providing 4G radios that use RAN software developed by Altiostar.

Limited competition is probably not the future envisaged by smaller open RAN companies or politicians touting the technology as a substitute for not only Huawei but also the Nordic firms. Yet Choi is optimistic that smaller firms will be able to thrive. "As long as the market is growing and we make open architecture stronger, then all these individual building blocks can be easily integrated," he told Light Reading. "And then I don't think big vendors can acquire all these companies because there will be too many."

RIL’s telecom subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, has filed for 68 patents, according to the company’s 2017-18 (Apr-Mar) annual report. Radisys Corp will add at least another 60 patents to its intellectual property assets.

Radisys Corp holds 37 patents in the US and 17 foreign utility patents, with 6 applications pending in the US, according to the company’s 2017 annual report.

Info-Tech
For home-grown 5G, RJio bets on free platform Open RAN
Thomas K Thomas Updated on July 16, 2020



Cuts cost, frees firm from dependence on vendors
Mukesh Ambani’s plans to build home-grown 5G network solution is based on an open source telecom platform called Open RAN. This network platform, similar to how open source software became a game changer in the 1990s, attempts to build telecom radio and base stations using non-proprietary technology. It will help bring down costs drastically compared to buying proprietary gear from the likes of Nokia and Ericsson.