5G Factor: Key MWC24 Takeaways – Open RAN

An Assessment of The Key MWC24 Takeaways in Open RAN Highlighted by Ericsson Cloud RAN, Nokia anyRAN, Energy Efficiency Moves, and Mavenir/Intel Innovations 

In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the 5G ecosystem as a whole, I look at the top Open RAN takeaways from my conversations and sessions at Mobile World Congress 2024. The major takeaways consist of Ericsson Cloud RAN portfolio advances, Nokia’s anyRAN market readiness including anyRAN for enterprise partnerships with Cisco, HPE, and Microsoft, as well as Mavenir’s latest collaboration with Intel to assure Open vRAN innovation and progress. 

Our analytical review focused on:

Ericsson Cloud RAN Meeting Topmost CSP Priorities. Ericsson’s Cloud RAN portfolio is aiding communications service providers (CSPs) in fulfilling their need for increased capacity and exponential increases in data traffic with solutions that make the best use of the available resources – essentially continuing to do more with less. Ericsson has long been focused on energy efficiency and it is a core element of the company’s strategy exemplified by its strategic objective is to be Net Zero across its value chain by 2040. I delve into how Ericsson’s portfolio development focus enables its radios to be optimized for performance, energy usage and embodied carbon emissions, regardless of whether they are deployed in an integrated or Cloud RAN setting. Ericsson’s newest radios are its most energy-efficient yet, offering 39 percent energy savings compared to previous hardware generations as per the company’s Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility Report for 2022 This includes how Ericsson is working closely within the Cloud RAN ecosystem and a variety of software and hardware partners such as Intel and AMD (CPU providers) Red Hat (containers-as-a-service, or CaaS), HPE and Dell (servers), to ultimately bring new Cloud RAN innovations, especially for energy efficiency, to market.

Nokia anyRAN Ready for Most Any 5G Demand. Nokia unveiled its Cloud RAN solution will be available commercially in 2024 following the successful completion of multiple trials worldwide with hardware vendors, webscale companies, and chipset manufacturers. Nokia's anyRAN approach can enable a fast transition to hybrid environments of Cloud RAN and purpose-built RAN, ensuring consistent performance and interoperability with common software and In-Line acceleration architecture. Nokia also announced the launch of anyRAN for enterprise in partnership with Cisco, HPE and Microsoft that will see the companies offer private wireless solutions to enterprise customers. Nokia’s anyRAN for enterprise offers more choice and flexibility for enterprises through collaboration with system integrators and cloud core solution providers alongside providing Nokia’s AirScale radio access portfolio to suit their specific requirements. By pre-packaging these solutions together, CSPs and enterprises can benefit from a faster deployment due to extensive interoperability testing with core suppliers. I evaluate why these collaborations enable Nokia to support core vendors’ networks and their ecosystems as well as provide access to new segments and markets, accelerating the adoption of 5G in the enterprise sector and boosting industries in their digital transformation.

Cloud RAN Must Align with Ecosystem-wide Sustainability Goals. The energy efficiency progress in Cloud RAN needs to align with the energy consumption of overall wireless systems and the digital ecosystem. Fundamentally, the more wireless electronic devices are put in use, the more energy will be consumed. In sum, 5G will exponentially increase energy usage. For instance, The  Small Cell Forum predicts the installed base of small cells to reach 70.2 million in 2025 and the total installed base of 5G or multimode small cells in 2025 to be 13.1 million. Plus, a 2023 study on energy use from 5G networks in China indicates that a carbon efficiency trap of 5G mobile networks is leading to additional carbon emissions of 23.82 ± 1.07 metric tons in China, caused by the spatiotemporal misalignment between cellular traffic and energy consumption in mobile networks. I assess why Ericsson’s Breaking the Energy Curve report further reinforces that the power consumption costs of the world’s cellular networks will be more than the previously estimated at $25 billion and CSPs should brace for higher costs. As a result, 5G on its own will not provide enough to substantially reduce energy consumption for entire mobile networks, likely requiring outside the box innovations.

Mavenir Teams with Intel to Give vRAN a Boost. At MWC24, Mavenir announced the availability of its Open vRAN solution powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with Intel vRAN Boost – designed to deliver a cloud-native, high-performance, and energy-efficient solution for latency-sensitive and compute-intensive mobile network applications. The move to Intel’s recent processors for vRAN marks the latest solution optimization for Mavenir, which I see has been helping to drive Open RAN momentum through three generations of Intel Xeon Scalable processors. I examine why Mavenir’s suite of performance, functionality, and integrated AI and ML applications for the next generation 4G and 5G networks alongside building a close and long-standing technology collaboration with Intel - underpinned by Intel’s processors – is enabling the development of more efficient and cost-effective RANs.