June 2023 | inform.tmforum.

org

REPORT

making
waves: the future for
Open RAN
technology

Author:
Dean Ramsay, Principal Analyst, TM Forum

Editor:
Ian Kemp, Managing Editor, TM Forum

Sponsored by:
contents

03 05 08
the big picture section 1: why operators section 2: the RAN
need RAN disruption Intelligent Controller
(RIC) as an enabler of
network/IT integration

14 20
section 3: Open RAN additional features
deployments – CSPs’ & resources
progress and challenges

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the big picture
Radio access networks (RANs) are key components of wireless infrastructure, connecting devices such as phones
and computers to other parts of the network through radio links. Traditionally, RAN equipment was proprietary,
with different vendors using their own interfaces, protocols and software. That left communications service
providers (CSPs) feeling they were locked into a single vendor, leading to limited competition in the supply chain
and innovation stagnation.

S
o the idea of, and clamor for,
standardized RANs started
to gain traction. In January
2021 four of Europe’s largest
operators – Deutsche Telekom,
Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone
Group – signed a memorandum of
understanding to implement
Open RAN across the continent.
The move aimed to promote the
deployment of Open RAN
technologies and ensure that a
strong ecosystem of companies
emerges in Europe.
Open RAN is essentially a
disruptive movement within the
telecoms supply chain which aims
to create more flexible and
interoperable network
infrastructures by using open and
standardized interfaces between
different components of the RAN.
It also seeks to bring many of the
new IT characteristics becoming
prevalent in service and network
operations – such as cloud, open
APIs and AI – to the RAN. A
cloud-native approach lowers
the cost of entry for suppliers
and opens the door to companies
not previously present in the
RAN space.
With Open RAN, vendors use open
and standardized interfaces, such
as those developed by the O-RAN
Alliance, to enable interoperability
between different components of
the RAN, including base stations,
radios and control units. This
allows operators to choose
equipment from multiple vendors,
mix and match components, and
upgrade or modify their networks
more easily. Another organization,
the Telecom Infra Project, works
to develop standard Open RAN
solutions to accelerate uptake of
the technology.
But the introduction of Open
RAN will not constitute a direct
replacement for existing RAN
solutions in the near or medium
term. Its real impact will be to
stimulate evolution of end-to-end
service operations automation.

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the big picture
Scale of disruption
While there is no doubt that the
idea of such standards is making
waves in the telecoms market, so
far it is a nascent movement. And
spending on Open RAN as a
proportion of total RAN equipment
and services to date is minuscule
(see chart).
Nevertheless, steady growth is
forecast. We estimate the global
spend by CSPs on Open RAN this
year will be around US$5 billion,
and is set to rise to around US$29
billion by 2028, at which point it
will represent around 11% of global
RAN infrastructure sales annually
(see chart). Other analysts forecast
even stronger growth: Dell’Oro
estimates Open RAN will account
for as much as 15%-20% of the
RAN market globally by 2027.
That would represent the largest
disruption in the global RAN
market in recent times. Certainly,
operators hope it will rejuvenate
the RAN supply chain, which
many say has been reduced to
an oligopoly.
But while such growth figures
suggest a sizable portion of
market share could be taken away
from the leading suppliers of RAN
hardware and software today, we
believe the impact of Open RAN
will be tangential. This shake-up
can be seen in two parts: Open
RAN is catalyzing change in a)
the whole RAN market and b)
the wider telecoms IT ecosystem.
Some major operator groups have
been more bullish than others
about their Open RAN progress. In
March, speaking at Mobile World
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Worldwide CSP spend with RAN suppliers ($ billions)
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
2022 2023 2024
Traditional RAN
TM Forum, 2023
Congress in Barcelona, Vodafone
UK CTO Scott Petty said that the
operator’s plan to deploy Open
RAN at 30% of base stations
across Europe by 2030 was
running slightly ahead of schedule.
He said that in the UK Vodafone
had 16 sites live, all reporting very
positive KPIs on operational
efficiency and capability, but also
on energy saving (see section 3
for a roundup of some of the
operators leading the way in
Open RAN deployments).
Scope of disruption
This report explores both the
immediate disruption being
brought about by the adoption of
Open RAN, and the effect that
this trend is having on telco
operations in the RAN domain
and from a wider transformational
perspective. We believe Open
RAN is not a panacea for driving
5G technology and other next-
generation technologies, but that
2025 2026 2027 2028
Open RAN
aspects of its architecture and the
changes it is bringing to the
supply chain are significant.
Read this report to understand:
Why the assertions that
Open RAN is making waves
are justified
Why the most significant
impact of Open RAN will
actually be on the wider
operational ecosystem
and not just the RAN
How leading CSPs are
deploying Open RAN and
what IT changes they are
making in conjunction with
this strategy
The possible business
implications for CSPs
driving innovation in their
supply chain.
In the next section we look
at some of the benefits and
challenges of moving to Open
RAN ecosystems.
section 1:

why operators need

RAN disruption
The shine has well and truly worn off 5G as a transformative technology. The telecoms industry has seen
four years of non-standalone 5G (5G NSA) consumer mobile services, with 5G RAN connected to the same
backhaul, core network and IT stacks as 4G. The promise of standalone 5G (5G SA) has been perpetually
on the horizon, and with it 5G network slicing, multi-access edge computing (MEC), new service models
and ultimately – so operators and vendors hope – a wave of growth and prosperity for the industry.

I
n late 2022 and early 2023 we
saw 5G Cloud Core networks
coming online, but some of the
RAN architectures are still just
designed to provide fast data
pipes for consumer mobile. Open
RAN is an attempt to
disaggregate RAN functionality,
by splitting out the hardware and
software, opening up the
architectures and diversifying the
supply chain. This newly created
multi-supplier ecosystem uses
cloud, network virtualization, AI /
machine learning, open APIs and
many of the other associated
technologies of 5G/cloud era
communications.
At the heart of all this is an
industry-wide effort to provide
some interoperability standards to
allow mobile network operators
(MNOs) to open the door to new
vendor partners, adopt cloud in the MNOs are
RAN and stimulate innovation for
increasingly
new business opportunities by
increasing competition. RAN seeing partner
domain technology is a key lever ecosystems as
for service model innovation and
the source of
MNOs are increasingly seeing their
partner ecosystems as the source innovation, rather
of that innovation, rather than from than from inside
inside their own organizations. As
their own
such, MNOs are experimenting with
Open RAN as a potential catalyst organizations.
for business transformation and
diversification.

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section 1: why operators need RAN disruption
As we suggested in the Big
Picture, Open RAN is likely to
have an impact on the immediate
RAN market in general and, to a
great extent, on the telecoms
ecosystem as a whole. This can be
distilled into some broad benefits
and challenges.
Impact on the immediate
RAN domain:
Cloud capabilities – Hardware
 that are more adaptable and
and software disaggregation
and a multivendor ecosystem
of cloud-native applications
and network functions
becomes fully open and
interoperable through open
APIs, allowing CSPs to have a
more plug-and-play supply
chain experience.
 nlocking new wireless
U require more sophisticated
service models with the RAN
Intelligent Controller (RIC)
– The RIC increases CSPs’
chances of successfully
monetizing new 5G use cases.
I nteroperating with 5G Cloud
Core – Best practice operating
models are materializing as 5G
Cores begin to come online
and CSPs realize standalone
operations in the core, x-haul
and RAN.
Read our report 5G Core:
exploring CSP approaches
to find out more
Impact on wider
telecoms operations:
End-to-end intelligence
– Connecting service-level
intelligence stored in
operational and business
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support systems (OSS/BSS)
with network functionality
via end-to-end service
orchestration and multi-
domain slice management.
A greater need for flexibility
 greater demands on existing
– Open RAN allows for more
flexibility in how networks are
designed and operated. This
could lead to OSS and BSS
customizable to meet the
needs of different network
architectures.
 ore complex integration
M requirements. These include:
– Open RAN involves using
a variety of vendors and
technologies, which could
make integrating OSS and
BSS more complex. This could
integration work where high
levels of standards are not
adhered to.
Increased competition
– Open RAN was inherently
designed to increase market
competition by enabling
multiple vendors to provide
different parts of the network.
This may lead to more
competition among OSS and
BSS vendors as well, as
operators seek out solutions
that are compatible with their
Open RAN deployments.
Driving open architectures
 CSPs want to see this mirrored in
– As Open RAN networks are
based on open standards,
there is a greater need for
software vendors to develop
systems that can integrate
with a wider range of network
components and provide more
flexible management and
billing capabilities. This can
create opportunities for OSS
and BSS vendors that
specialize in open standards
and modular architectures.
Real-time data – Open RAN
 move the process function into an
can also create challenges for
existing OSS/BSS as it may
require more real-time
analytics, monitoring and
management capabilities to
support dynamic network
optimization and performance
management. This can place
OSS/BSS trying to handle
these new requirements.
Key capabilities
At the same time, next-generation
RANs need to deliver some key
capabilities in order to meet
current and future operator
Supporting existing core
business – First and foremost, any
new RAN technology needs to be
capable of business continuity.
This means connecting consumer
handsets to base stations to
provide 4G and 5G services at
a quality of service comparable
to existing RAN deployments.
Providing service-centric,
end-to-end management and
orchestration capabilities – The
trend across OSS and BSS IT
systems above the network is to
strive towards a plug-and-play,
open, multivendor ecosystem
capable of full business process
automation. Accomplishing this has
been a long and arduous journey.
But considerable investment is
starting to pay dividends, and
the network domains.
Maximum agility and scalability
– Any future RAN deployment
needs to be characterized by
increased flexibility, scalability and
innovation, as well as directly
focused on meeting the demands
of new and emerging applications.
MEC-enabled functions – The
edge is where many new service
use cases could come to life in the
5G SA era. For example, on the
consumer side mobile gaming can
edge cloud providing ‘console-
like’ experiences on a handheld
device such as a smartphone.
section 1: why operators need RAN disruption
On the B2B side, industrial IoT
applications can automate the
factories of the future using
5G-connected robots and sensor
arrays over an ultra-low latency,
dedicated 5G slice with all of
the management carried out
at the edge.
Inherently optimizing and self-
healing – Network planning and
optimization has traditionally been
a separate OSS function to RAN
management, with the exception
of some self-organizing network
(SON) vendors. Future RAN
domain solutions need to have
self-organizing, self-optimizing and
self-healing protocols native to the
management software to perform
these tasks in real time in a
contextual, intent-aware fashion.
The RAN Intelligent Controller
(RIC) solves these issues (see
section 2).
Power consumption optimization
– One of the early promises of
Open RAN was that it will help
MNOs with their power
consumption. While 5G is less
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power hungry than 4G per bit,
the overall hike in data volumes
due to that efficiency results in a
net rise in power consumption
(the so-called Jevons Paradox).
But in the past couple of years In the past
environment, social and couple of years
governance (ESG) concerns and
energy footprints have risen to the environment,
top of the ‘must address’ agenda social and
for most operators worldwide. governance (ESG)
Read our report The sustainable concerns and
telco: engineering networks for
net zero to find out more about energy footprints
operators’ sustainability strategies have risen to the
top of the ‘must
address’ agenda
for most operators
worldwide.
In the next section we look at the
importance of the RAN Intelligent
Controller (RIC), which is key to
linking the orchestrated network
with the IT stacks above it.
section 2:

the RIC as an enabler of

network/IT integration
Talk to many vendors, and you might get the impression that RAN
Intelligent Controllers (RICs) are the answer to operators’ quest to
deliver new revenue streams in often stagnating markets. RICs, they say,
promise to help operators reduce infrastructure and operational costs,
improve network performance and increase business agility. And they
argue that they will help CSPs build new revenue streams with RICs promise
personalized services and network slicing. to help reduce
infrastructure and

R
ICs are software-defined
components of the Open
RAN architecture that are
responsible for controlling and
optimizing specific RAN functions.
Operators hope they will help
them to automate and optimize
future services at scale.
“The RIC is key because it’s…a way
to automate configuration of the
network at a scale which is just
impossible to think about if we had
to do that manually,” Laurent
Leboucher, Group CTO and Senior
Vice President, Orange Innovation
Networks, told TM Forum last year.
The RIC is a critical component
of the Open RAN disaggregation
strategy, enabling multivendor
interoperability, AI-enabled
intelligence, agility and SDN-like
programmability. The RIC also
facilitates the onboarding of
third-party applications that
automate and optimize the
processes at play in the RAN,
at scale.
As mobile network operators
(MNOs) move into the era of
multiple network slice
orchestration and new radio
transmission technologies – such
as beamforming from massive
multiple input, multiple output
(MIMO) antennas to improve
throughput and capacity of the
radio link – the number of
configurable parameters for 5G
networks is set to increase
significantly, likely reaching into
the thousands. To cope with this
complexity many MNOs will opt to
operational costs,
improve network
performance and
increase business
agility.
rely on the RIC as the underlying
platform. Using open APIs,
rApps and xApps applications –
specialized software apps for
network automation – can be
built on top of the RIC, offering
automation and optimization use
cases and bringing competition
to an area of the RAN that has
traditionally been proprietary.

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section 2: the RIC as an enabler of network/IT integration
Business motivations
A reasonable analogy for the RIC,
is to think of it as the brain of an
Open RAN deployment. A RIC
looks at the RAN in an holistic
fashion, taking in a contextual
view of network elements,
connections and functions. It is
able to make intelligent decisions
which relate to the performance
of not just the network as a whole,
but also individual services. This
capability is very attractive to
CSPs as it furthers their ability to
unlock use cases across the whole
network such as:
Spectrum usage, which tracks
demand for optimized media
and game streaming
Multiple new revenue
opportunities in the mobile
macro and private networks
space through network slicing
and geolocation and mass
capex savings
Less need for unused capacity
overhead in the network as
availability can more closely
track demand
Better sustainability in
energy consumption
through optimal usage.
All of these features align with
the leaner business model that
many CSPs are adopting as part
of their efforts to both run a
tighter ship in terms of costs and
also to open the door to new
revenues as part of their business
diversification strategies.
For cost metrics such as energy
consumption – where savings
are now critical for all operators
– we are seeing Open RAN
deployments reaching parity
with traditional integrated RAN
solutions. Such costs will be
driven down in future generations
of Open RAN technology now
that the foundations of intelligent
measurement and control have
been set down.
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RIC Architecture
OSS/BSS
Service Management and Orchestration (SMO)
Core, x-haul and transport domains contextual data
AI/ML Models RAN Analytics rApps
Non-RT RIC Framework
Open APIs
Near-RT RIC
Open APIs
RAN Control RAN Optimization xApps
Near-RT RIC Framework
Open APIs
Open RAN Distributed Unit (O-DU) Open RAN Central Unit (O-CU)
TM Forum, 2023
Deutsche Telekom says in its Flavors of RIC
whitepaper on its O-RAN Town
rApps and xApps are specialized
project that it is pushing its
software applications for
vendors to focus on this aspect of
automating network functions and
operational efficiency as part of
maximizing operational efficiency
the selection process: “Optimizing
in the RAN. They are an essential
energy efficiency requires end-to-
part of the RIC, and in combination
end analysis and benchmarking of
are proving to be a powerful tool
the solution stack. New hardware
for optimizing the network. An
generations will be expected to
example of this is in power usage,
provide price and performance
where the combination of rApps
KPIs on a par with traditional
and xApps can monitor capacity
RAN. In addition, new hardware
usage and adjust the power usage
generations will be designed to
of radio units automatically so
better serve the needs of a
they use only the power needed
distributed deployment – e.g. by
to run services.
supporting operations in
environments up to 55°C.”
section 2: the RIC as an enabler of network/IT integration
The two flavors of RIC are the
non-real-time RIC and the near-
real-time RIC. The non-real-time
RIC (non-RT RIC) is where rApps
are hosted. It is typically located
centrally in the radio access
network and enables non-real-time
actions that take over one second.
Typical use cases such as policy
management, configuration, load
balancing, cloud management,
slice management, anomaly
detection, fault prediction and
energy saving are built as rApps
on the non-RT RIC.
The near-real-time RIC (near-RT
RIC) is where xApps are hosted.
The near-RT RIC is typically in
more distributed parts of the
RAN, within telco edge cloud or
regional clouds, but can be
located centrally. It enables
actions that take between 10
milliseconds and one second to
complete, such as near-real-time
dynamic management and
resource utilization as part of a
self-optimizing strategy.
The introduction of service
management orchestrators and
both non-RT and near-RT RICs,
has a catalyzing effect on CSPs’
initiatives to drive end-to-end
service management workflow for
multivendor environments. OSS/
BSS ecosystems will need to
enable this automated vision of
future operations. For example,
when a series of workflows are
being actioned by the OSS to
activate network resources to
fulfill a customer service, having a
clear automation path across
network management and
orchestration is a must for zero-
touch operations. Many CSPs have
had problems with the interface
across the abstraction layer
between service and network
orchestration. The introduction of
Open RAN is driving an imperative
to fix this part of the architecture.
10
The two RICs have different
functions within the RAN, but are
designed to interact to optimally
cover all use cases, depending on
the workload requirements for
specific service orchestration
workflows. This approach means
that customer experience is
optimized and that quality of
service (QoS) against a pre-
agreed SLA can be ensured.
An industry-wide effort
For the RIC model to deliver true
value, industry bodies such as the
O-RAN Alliance are working to
complete the specifications for
the interfaces. The E2 interface,
which enables communication
between the near-RT RIC and the
RAN’s centralized unit (CU) and
distributed unit (DU) components,
is a key example.
The goal of a truly open
multivendor ecosystem on which
application developers can build
functions into the xApps, requires
an industry-wide collaboration
between MNOs, software vendors,
standards bodies, systems
integrators and so on. This
collaboration should also include
the established RAN vendors.
For example, when an MNO is
providing a customer with a
network slice over the 5G RAN:
The non-RT RIC is responsible
for continuously monitoring
slice usage
If an SLA violation is detected,
the non-RT RIC makes
configuration changes and
updates the xApp in the
near-RT RIC that is responsible
for RAN slice assurance
The xApp then makes
configuration changes to
CUs and DUs, then feeds back
to the rApps (in the non-RT
RIC) to confirm SLAs are now
being met.
AI/machine learning
For real-time optimization
strategies at scale, artificial
intelligence (AI) and machine
learning (ML) will be used to
remove human decision-making
or classical policy-based rules
from the optimization process.
The non-RT RIC will manage and
enhance RAN performance within
control loops that extend beyond
one second, a responsibility that
was previously attributed to the
centralized self-organizing
network (C-SON) for some of
its functions.
In a traditional RAN, significant
radio environment data, such as
device location, signal strength
measurements, as well as
knowledge of use cases, are
stored for offline analysis. The
use of AI/ML tools are growing
in importance and will process
the data faster in order to aid
the non-RT RIC decision-
making processes.
End-to-end operations
Innovations supported by RIC
technology are having an impact
on telecoms IT evolution:
The introduction of service
management orchestrator and
both non-RT and near-RT
RICs, have accelerated CSPs’
initiatives to drive end-to-end
service management workflow
for multivendor environments.
OSS/BSS ecosystems need to
be able to meet this
automated vision of future
operations by evolving in line
with an holistic zero-touch
operations strategy roadmap.
The use of AI/ML in telco
operations has been heavily
promoted. Near-RT and
non-RT RIC functions leverage
rApps and xApps to induce
AI/ML-based decision-making.
inform.tmforum.org
section 2: the RIC as an enabler of network/IT integration
The underlying hardware
platform for RIC functions
must be optimized for AI/
ML-based learning, and AI/
ML-enabled OSS are needed
to maximize data sharing
across open interfaces.
5G cost structures are now
being questioned. Open
RAN network standardized
architecture allows operators
to host the disaggregated
baseband unit (BBU) on
cloud-native platforms over
commercial servers with an
open fronthaul interface
towards any third-party radios,
which opens the door for
resource sharing.
Trends like the rise of 5G
Mobile Private Networks
(MPNs) have the potential to
significantly disrupt
established country network
MNOs in their B2B plans. Open
RAN significantly lowers the
cost of entry for both telcos
and non-telco service
providers competing to deliver
new wireless enterprise
connectivity solutions.
As many Open RAN
deployments are brownfield,
there is a need for the IT
systems in OSS/BSS to be
able to interoperate with both
proprietary RANs from
traditional suppliers and those
provided by vendors in the
Open RAN ecosystem.
Greater interoperability
Because Open RAN promotes
the use of open and standardized
interfaces and protocols, allowing
different vendors to create
interoperable equipment and
IT, a componentized architecture
– such as TM Forum’s Open
Digital Architecture (ODA) –
can interoperate more easily
(see box above and graphic
on page 12).
11
Open RAN meets ODA for a standardized future
TM Forum’s Open Digital ODA is its default reference
Architecture (ODA) aims to enterprise architecture
replace traditional operational It has widespread ODA
and business support systems competence evidenced by
(OSS/BSS) with a modern, ODA training certifications
cloud-native approach to building
The company is actively
software for the telecoms
contributing to ODA
industry. The goal is to create a
development, driven by
software marketplace where
real-world operational needs
CSPs can easily procure Lego-like
IT components that can be Open APIs are deployed and
plugged into their operations in operational use
environments and managed
Open API conformance is
autonomously. This speeds
mandatory for its suppliers,
innovation and service creation,
and ODA competence is
improves customer experience
expected, evidenced by ODA
and reduces operating costs.
training certifications.
Axiata, Jio, Telus and Vodafone
To find out more about ODA
have gone through the rigorous
please contact George Glass.
process of having their companies
certified as “Running on ODA”. A And read our e-book to find out
CSP can achieve this status if it how to use ODA components for
has met the following criteria: a plug-and-play architecture.
Open RAN also encourages the RAN deployment. He said that
use of cloud technologies and with multiple vendors there was
virtualization, which CSPs are no single organization to provide
using in their technology strategies the overarching strategy and
to reduce costs and improve technical roadmap.
flexibility and agility. With Open
RAN, operators can broaden and
harmonize their strategy for
virtualized functions and software-
defined networks right into the
heart of the RAN. This aligns
more tightly with the fundamental Open RAN
shift in the industry towards a
more open and standardized
significantly
operational approach. lowers the cost
of entry for
Integration challenges service providers
Integration and interoperability competing to
between a much wider group of
vendors is a well-documented
deliver new
challenge for Open RAN wireless enterprise
deployments. Dish Chairman, connectivity
Charlie Ergen, said during a
2022 earnings call that Dish
solutions.
unexpectedly became a sort of
systems integrator for its 5G Open
inform.tmforum.org
section 2: the RIC as an enabler of network/IT integration

ODA provides a common reference model

Business architecture Information systems architecture

• business capability map & value-stream
mappings
• multi-layered model of the key business
processes for efficient, agile operations
(Business Process Framework – eTOM)
• functional architecture (structured, simplified & implementation-
independent views enforce decoupling)
• information architecture with standard definitions for the information
that flows through the enterprise & between service providers & their
partners (Information Framework – SID)

Open Digital Architecture

BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Functional
Framework
End-to-end & Information
GOVERNANCE Business Capability Process Framework
Implementation
governance Repository (eTOM)
Framework
(SID)
Functional architecture
• principles, Concepts & Principles Architecture
ile Lifecycle M
design guides, Ag • suite of 70+ REST-based
metamodels an
Open APIs for standardized
age nt
agement

Design Guides
me interoperability of IT systems
• tools for agile DEPLOYMENT & RUNTIME IMPLEMENTATION & partner integration
an
M

management of API Governance

Ag
ile Lifecycle

the architecture • standardized data model,

lifecycle AI Governance
Operations
Open APIs enhanced for AI operations
Frameworks
Technical
Canvas Architecture &
• definition of components for
Data Governance Components reuse & simple integration
Reference
Data Models
Implementation
Security Governance

Deployment & runtime environment

• ODA Canvas – a standard technical framework & DevOps
environment for plug-and-play ODA components
• lab-deployed reference implementation and test environment

TM Forum, 2022

“Ultimately, we found that we had system) functional software.

to become the system integrator,” Then after the Open RAN rollout
he said. “It wasn’t a role we thought the CSP must work towards
we were going to take on. But with establishing an operations platform
all the vendors, somebody has got that enables the deployment of
to be the middle man between Integration and cloud-native functions such as
them and be the glue that holds interoperability vCU (virtual centralized unit)
them together. And we are much and vDU (virtual distributed unit)
more involved in that than maybe between vendors and Kubernetes-based container
we thought we were going to be.” is a well- orchestration (control plane)
But there is also the matter of documented together in a single cloud or server
deployment with shared compute,
integrating Open RAN solutions challenge for storage and networking resources.
with the existing network and
OSS/BSS to create an advanced Open RAN While, typically, CSPs are used to
end-to-end service operations deployments. the integration of virtualized and
platform. Development needs to be traditional network technologies
done in the virtualization layer to and the challenges of multivendor
host either virtual network function software environments, Open
(VNF) or cloud-native network RAN adds an additional element
function (CNF) applications of complexity because of the
needed for Open RAN. Openstack, hypervisors to run centralized and distributed units.
virtual machines and manage Open RAN CUs and DUs can be
For network functions
VNFs, as well as essential instantiated in different locations
virtualization (NFV) this may mean
components like CU (centralised to meet the capacity and use case
procurement of an open-source
unit), DU (distributed unit), and requirements at each of those
cloud computing platform such as
EMS (element management locations. Enhancing the overall

12 inform.tmforum.org
section 2: the RIC as an enabler of network/IT integration
reliability of the ecosystem is
then down to leveraging the
containerization of CU and DU,
cloud-native network function
capacity scaling, redundancy
and reduced latency techniques.
Integrating this piece into the
overall service operations
framework can be significantly
more complex from a management
and orchestration point of view.
Master orchestration
Industry bodies like the O-RAN
Alliance are developing standards
for the service management and
orchestration component (SMO)
of the Open RAN architecture
which interoperate with the
prevalent TM Forum Open APIs
already in place in many CSPs’
service operations environments.
As such, a master service
orchestrator in the RIC could act
as a main controller for some RAN
functionality from higher up the
stack in the OSS.
13
With this system in place, trends
like intent-based operations will
be able to instantiate RAN
functionality in an automated
manner as fulfillment workflows
pass down through BSS and OSS. Industry bodies
This adds the final piece to the are developing
end-to-end management and
orchestration strategy that many standards for
operators are following today. the service
For the next step in the evolution management
of the RIC, industry bodies are and orchestration
working on the specifications for
the interfaces. Specifically, they are component of
working on the E2 interface, the Open RAN
between the near real-time RIC and architecture which
the RAN’s centralized unit (CU) and
distributed unit (DU) components. interoperate with
This will enable end-to-end TM Forum Open
operations and also stimulate the APIs already in
multivendor ecosystem over which
app developers can build new place in many
functions into xApps. CSPs’ service
In the next section we look at operations
some CSPs that are already environments.
deploying Open RAN and, as a
result, realizing benefits and
identifying challenges.
inform.tmforum.org
section 3:

Open RAN deployments –

progress and challenges
Worldwide, approximately 150 mobile network operators (MNOs) are running tests of Open RAN in labs or proof-of-
concept trials. In addition, several operators have already deployed Open RAN in their live networks and are following
a base station build-out strategy. In this section we look at some of those deployments and examine the effect that
Open RAN is having on their wider operational structures.

W
hen Open RAN was still
in the proof-of-concept
phase many of the
predicted uses for the technology
were highlighted by B2B service
models, but in live deployments
there is also genuine uptake for
consumer mobile broadband
services. With Open RAN still
relatively nascent, the number of
Open RAN-enabled base stations
is still a tiny percentage of the
global total, but the pioneering
MNOs trialing the technology are
being watched closely.
The creation of a much wider
installed base of Open RAN
deployments will certainly be
heavily influenced by MNOs’ use
of the technology to serve their
4G and 5G consumer customers.
If it is deemed reliable enough for
mass deployment by the
pioneering MNOs, the wider CSP
community will almost certainly
follow suit.
In terms of the impact we are
seeing on the wider IT ecosystem
for MNOs currently deploying
Open RAN, the network integration
piece is still being negotiated, with
the main considerations being In live Open RAN
efficiency and reliability. We then
deployments there
expect to see the focus shift up the
IT stack into service management is genuine uptake
and orchestration capabilities, and for consumer
links between existing OSS/BSS
mobile broadband
strategies and the RAN service
management and orchestration services.
(SMO) framework and the RIC. At
this point it will be possible for
operators to start thinking about
the service model innovation they affords to build small-scale mobile
hope to drive. networks for enterprises – such as
Beyond the MNOs, groups of in factories, on campus sites, in
non-telco service providers are public buildings and so on. In the
scoping the use of Open RAN on first instance, we expect to see
a much smaller scale, usually in these run like LAN deployments,
private network settings. Usage but use cases such as airports and
here is often very connectivity- sports stadiums will require more
centric, exploiting the low-cost complex functions in the RIC to
entry point that Open RAN deliver customer services.

14 inform.tmforum.org
section 3: Open RAN deployments – progress and challenges

Following are selected examples
of some of the key MNO Open
RAN deployments to date.
Vodafone announced its first wave
of Open RAN vendors in 2021. The
move was seen as a clear
endorsement for Open RAN from
a tech-centric and progressive
operator group.
Vodafone’s initial focus is on 2,500
sites in the UK, and the operator
says it currently has 16 sites live in
total, predominantly in rural areas.
This makes it one of the largest
deployments in the world, with
Dell, Intel, NEC, Samsung and
Wind River working on the
infrastructure and IT and a variety
of new radio equipment coming
into use. Capgemini Engineering
and Keysight Technologies are
providing systems integration
services to ensure interoperability
between all the components.
In May, Vodafone announced what
it says is the first commercial
urban deployment of Open RAN
in Europe in the UK towns of
Exmouth and Torquay, providing
customers with download speeds
of up to 700 Mbps thanks in large
part to massive MIMO technology.
“From improved internet speeds to
greater access to 5G, we can
already see the benefits for
customers in these towns,” said
Alberto Ripepi, Vodafone Group
Chief Network Officer.
Vodafone says it is committed to
deploying Open RAN on 30% of its
mobile sites across its European
network by 2030. It recently began
Open RAN trials in Germany, its
largest European market.
Vodafone cites the key benefits of
Open RAN as:
Vendor diversity: The

disaggregation of network
hardware and software
components lowers the barrier
to entry for new suppliers,
enabling Vodafone to add
greater resilience to its supply
chain by working with a
greater number, and more
diverse pool, of suppliers.
Opportunity for niche/

specialist suppliers: Bringing
down the barriers to entry
allows Vodafone to work with
more specialist suppliers.
This is particularly relevant
in the software domain,
because as the network
becomes more “intelligent”
it has to be supported by
best-in-breed solutions.
Energy efficiency gains:

Instead of looking at the bigger
RAN picture, breaking down
the different components
through Open RAN allows
companies to focus more
acutely on energy efficiency
programmes in specific areas.
 ocus on software operations:
F
By ensuring any software and
hardware components of the
network are vendor agnostic
and interoperable, upgrades
to orchestration, management
and automation software
do not necessarily mean
hardware components have
to be replaced.

Vodafone's Open RAN timeline

2020 2021 2022 2023

UK government rules
that operators must
remove Huawei
equipment from their
networks by the end of
2027. Vodafone starts
to scope an alternative
strategy for 5G
Initial scope announced.
Vodafone says its initial
focus is on 2,500 sites
in the UK
Selects key vendors.
Starts what will be the
first commercial
deployment in Europe
Mobile World Congress.
Commits to deploying
Open RAN on 30% of
mobile sites across its
European network
by 2030
SME and MPN support.
Announces Open
RAN-compatible 5G
network-in-a-box
solution
Speed record for
consumer users: Claims
5G Open RAN data
download rates of up
to 700 Mbps in live
UK network

15 inform.tmforum.org
section 3: Open RAN deployments – progress and challenges
Operators like
Rakuten and
Dish Wireless
are driving the
evolution of Open
RAN software and
promoting some
innovation in
the base station
equipment space.
Santiago Tenorio, Vodafone
Fellow and Director of Network
Architecture, and Chairman of the
Telecom Infra Project (TIP), spoke
to Telecom TV earlier this year
about the operator’s progress and
upcoming request for quotation
process for Open RAN equipment
in 2024. “Once you get Open RAN
into urban areas, and once you
integrate massive MIMO into the
system and you can demonstrate
that it performs well, that’s an
important milestone for proving the
maturity of the system,” he said.
The operator earlier this year also
announced an Open RAN-
compatible “5G network-in-a-box”
solution, with the aim of making
5G-based mobile private networks
(MPNs) more accessible to small
and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) across Europe. It can run
any 5G core software stack and
RAN software sized for a small
network deployment.
This development speaks to
Vodafone’s wide commitment
to Open RAN in the wake of its
replacement of Huawei equipment
in its network (see timeline on p.15).
Addressing SME and MPN use
cases with small cell deployment
16
capabilities that can be harmonized Rakuten Mobile’s network now
with its Open RAN-compliant has around 60,000 macro base
x-haul and 5G Core network stations, 12,000 5G base stations,
configurations, shows the operator and a large but unspecified
is invested in the technology and number of small cells deployed,
associated architectures for its providing 98% population
network rollout strategy. coverage in the Japanese market.
All of this is managed by a team
In terms of the impact of Open
of just 220 network operations
RAN on Vodafone’s wider IT
strategy, the company has been personnel, a signifier of how
working on a platform business cloud-native network operations
are far less labor intensive than
approach for several years. At the
running traditional telco networks.
heart of this is an end-to-end
orchestration plan to enable IT As a greenfield deployment,
automation, sitting over the top of a Rakuten Mobile provides little
series of interlinked programmable indication to the rest of the
network domains. Open RAN is a industry as to the best practices
component of this overarching for deployment in brownfield
strategy and provides software- scenarios. However, operators like
defined networking (SDN) Rakuten and Dish Wireless are
functionality out to the network driving the evolution of Open
edge and mobile endpoints. RAN software and promoting
some innovation in the base
station equipment space.
Rakuten recently opened an
Japanese mobile operator Rakuten Open RAN “customer experience
Mobile launched the world’s first center” in the UK to facilitate
fully virtualized cloud-native interoperability testing and other
mobile network using Open RAN advancements. The center enables
technology in 2020. The company operators and industry suppliers
has since been seen as an industry from Europe and the Middle East
focal point for greenfield, cloud- to test Open RAN advancements,
native operations, a vision of what which can support safe, open and
can be done in telco operations transparent 5G networks.
without the issues of legacy
technology. Rakuten’s radio access
strategy was informed by its need
to build an ecosystem of suppliers Dish Wireless, the mobile business
in the Japanese market to drive of US-based satellite television
innovation and cost benefits. provider Dish Network, is currently
rolling out its 5G network using
Read our 2020 report Rakuten
Open RAN technology, including
Mobile: no ordinary telco to find
standalone 5G (5G SA) with the
out more about its origins and
capability to provide network
pioneering use of cloud-native
slicing. The company has
and Open RAN technology:
partnered with multiple vendors
to develop a cloud-native RAN
architecture that is the largest
commercial Open RAN
deployment in North America.
Author: Mark Newman, Chief Analyst
Editor: Dawn Bushaus, Managing Editor
Dish is on track to cover about
June 2020
70% of the US population –
around 230 million people –
Sponsors:
with its network by mid 2023,
inform.tmforum.org
inform.tmforum.org
section 3: Open RAN deployments – progress and challenges
as required by regulator the FCC.
It is currently deploying about
1,000 sites every month and is set
to have around 20,000 macro
sites in operation by the end of
the year. The company’s mid-term
requirement is to reach 75% of the
population in each of its separate
license areas by June 2025.
The US government has set aside
$1.5 billion in an initiative called the
Public Wireless Supply Chain
Innovation Fund to help promote
the evolution of Open RAN in a
move to drive more home-grown
US RAN suppliers. Dish has
suggested that this fund is used to
support the development of two
key areas of Open RAN evolution:
security and systems integration.
Indeed, Dish has set out the
challenges it has faced with
systems integration. In a recent
response to the US government
National Telecommunications and
Information Agency’s request for
comment on the Innovation Fund,
it said: “Dish has had to become its
own system integrator, investing
substantial time and resources
working with vendors to facilitate
reliable end-to-end interoperability
and to ensure that technology is
optimized for use on Dish’s
spectrum. This was a challenge
– and it provided Dish and its
partners with valuable experience.
Dish managed dozens of partners
to create a 5G network ecosystem
and develop a technology
roadmap to ease the adoption of
Open RAN, including by validating
new solutions and releases into
Dish’s 5G technology stack.”
Once again that points to the
need for highly interoperable,
componentized architectures for
MNOs that are following Open
RAN strategies. And it requires
easy integration and reuse of
those components – such as is
made possible using TM Forum’s
Open Digital Architecture (ODA)
– to improve the chances of
17
running lean operations and
developing better margins when
introducing new service lines.
In terms of energy savings, Dish’s
Chief Network Officer, Marc
Rouanne, has revealed the
operator’s strategy for greater RIC
development from the third quarter
of this year. The focus in the first
instance will be aimed at energy
saving in the RAN. For example,
Rouanne believes that xApps will
allow Dish to power down its
network during quiet periods. “We
can switch off the physical resource
blocks and decrease power
consumption during the night,”
he said during a keynote speech at
the Big 5G Event covered by Light
Reading. “All this can be managed
through software.”
Read our report Dish Wireless:
next-generation telco to find out
more about the operator’s
strategy in rolling out its cloud-
native, standalone 5G network.
In August 2021, 1&1 selected
Rakuten to help build a virtualized
Open RAN 5G network and
become Germany’s fourth mobile
operator. At the time we reported
that Rakuten would be responsible
for building 1&1’s active network
equipment and the overall
performance of its mobile network.
In addition, 1&1 gained access to
the Rakuten Communications
Platform (RCP) stack of access,
core, cloud and operations
capabilities, and Rakuten’s
1&1 will become
the first European
operator to
commit to building
a complete Open
RAN-based
network.
orchestration software to
automate much of its
network operations.
1&1 is now in the process of
building out its nationwide, fully
virtualised 5G network. In doing so,
it will become the first European
operator to commit to building a
complete Open RAN-based
network. 1&1 has set goals of
building 1,200 cell sites by the end
of 2023 and serving at least a
quarter of the German population
by 2025, and 50% by 2030.
After delays last year, 1&1 switched
on part of its new 5G network
in January.
In November 2021 the Federal
Ministry of Transport and Digital
Infrastructure said it will invest
300 million euros over several
years to support companies in the
development and testing of Open
RAN in Germany. That included an
Open RAN lab consortium led by
Deutsche Telekom and including
Telefónica Germany; and setting
up two Open RAN cities, one led
by Vodafone and another by
Deutsche Telekom.
The announcement suggested
the German government is betting
on technologies such as Open
RAN 5G having a positive impact
on the country’s abilities as an
industrial and technology nation.
inform.tmforum.org
section 3: Open RAN deployments – progress and challenges
Open RAN makes sense in
industrial settings, as the radio
environment can require mixed
macro and small cell deployments
to overcome RF propagation
issues on-site and challenges
around electromagnetic
interference. But while having an
ecosystem of specialist suppliers
to address these challenges seems
like a great idea on paper, the real
test for Open RAN will be in the
integration and interoperability of
the IT and data.
Orange’s strategy for Open RAN
has been one of the most
advanced in terms of brownfield
operators. The MNO is looking at
standalone 5G (5G SA)
deployments with massive MIMO
antennas to support its enterprise
customers with network slicing
and large improvements in
throughput and spectral efficiency.
In February 2023, Orange signed
an agreement with Vodafone to
build an Open RAN network with
RAN sharing in rural parts of
Europe where they both have
mobile networks, starting in
Romania. Michaël Trabbia,
Open RAN is a
great opportunity
to take network
sharing to a whole
new dimension,
with even
higher operator
differentiation.”
Michaël Trabbia,
Orange
18
Chief Technology and Innovation
Officer at Orange, said: “Open
RAN is a great opportunity to
take network sharing to a whole
new dimension, with even higher
operator differentiation thanks Open RAN has
to the ability for each of the matured over the
partners to tune its network
more independently according last months in
to its promises towards its both stability and
own customers.” performance,
This is the first time that two which has given
companies have agreed to share
Open RAN networks in Europe. us the confidence
The move is indicative of for an initial
European operators’ need to run commercial
lean operations for 5G SA, and
suggests that for the first time deployment.”
network infrastructure sharing is Abdu Mudesir,
being entered into more liberally Deutsche Telekom
in competitive markets.
In November 2021, Orange opened
an Open RAN integration center
for companies to test and validate
the operator’s brownfield network.
their Open RAN products and
In addition, Mavenir has been
services. “We want to accelerate
chosen as a partner for an initial
the development of an open,
multi-vendor deployment in
intelligent, cloud-based RAN and
Deutsche Telekom’s European
create a rich Open RAN ecosystem
footprint starting in 2023.
in Europe,” said Trabbia at the
time. “From 2025 onwards, our “Open RAN has matured over the
ambition is to deploy only Open last months in both stability and
RAN equipment across Europe.” performance, which has given us
the confidence for an initial
From an IT perspective, Orange
commercial deployment,” said
needs to support its end-to-end
Abdu Mudesir, Deutsche Telekom
ambitions for network slicing with
Group CTO. “Together with
a service operations IT set-up
Nokia, Mavenir and other
which enables full automation
ecosystem partners, we will
down through BSS/OSS and
use our collaboration as the
network management. This will
springboard to accelerate Open
enable it to monetize new service
RAN development and create a
models and drive customer
path to deployment at scale.”
service ambitions.
Nokia will deliver the baseband
units for the sites at
Neubrandenburg, with Nokia and
Fujitsu providing open fronthaul
Deutsche Telekom earlier this year
announced that it will partner with
support and equipment and Open
Nokia and Fujitsu for an initial
RAN-compliant remote radio
units. Mavenir will provide cloud-
commercial Open RAN
native baseband software for the
deployment in Germany.
Customers in the Neubrandenburg
4G and 5G distributed units for
further deployments in the
area will receive 2G, 4G and 5G
operator’s European footprint.
services from the deployment in
inform.tmforum.org
section 3: Open RAN deployments – progress and challenges
Malaysian operator Axiata has
carried out Open RAN trials in
Indonesia and Sri Lanka as well as
its home market, with mixed
results. Axiata hoped to find a
cost-efficient way to extend its 2G
and 4G rural coverage, but
experienced multiple deployment
challenges. The company’s
conclusion was that Open RAN
does not offer a commercially
viable alternative to combined
2G/4G legacy network equipment.
Among the difficulties Axiata
encountered was the integration of
Open RAN with legacy networks.
“It’s an automation issue, it’s an
integration issue, it’s an
interoperability issue, it’s a labor
capability issue,” explained Thomas
Hundt, Group Chief Strategy &
Technology Officer, speaking at
DTW Asia 2023. As things stand,
“we do not yet see Open RAN
[being] as commercially
competitive as it [needs]…to
be to replace legacy vendors.”
Nonetheless, the company has not
given up on Open RAN and is
evaluating a single-layer 4G fixed
wireless access use case in Sri
Lanka. It is also weighing up the
use of Open RAN for 5G overlay,
including for private networks.
“That’s one of the second use
cases we are working on, and we
have entered into a few deals
already with Rakuten,” said Hundt.
But he stressed that the
disaggregated nature of Open
RAN means its deployment
requires skills that a typical telco
does not possess in-house. “The
integration is complex. And
without automation at large, you
will not be able to make this work,”
he said. For this reason, Axiata
19
Digital Labs is developing
capabilities to support Open RAN
deployment, including an
automation engine, so that in the
longer term Axiata can scale up
Open RAN across the six markets We do not yet see
in which it operates. Open RAN [being]
Hundt also noted that Open RAN as commercially
needs further standardization: “If
the telcos have to integrate the competitive as it
radios...and there is no designed [needs]…to be to
compatibility, the effort to replace legacy
interoperate is going through the
roof and that’s challenging.” Nor vendors.”
does he believe Open RAN can Thomas Hundt,
currently support a carrier-grade Axiata
service. “We probably had 70% or
80% [of carrier grade service], but
we are serving real customers,”
he said. “We cannot let them
down because we…have a 20%
gap to close.”
Indian operator Airtel intends to
include Open RAN in its 5G rollout
before the end of 2023. In
December 2022, Airtel signed an
agreement with Meta to jointly
develop digital network
infrastructure. Both companies are
members of the Telecom Infra
Project Open RAN Project Group,
and part of the aim is to increase
the operational efficiency of Open
RAN and facilitate energy
management and automation in
radio networks using advanced
analytics and AI / machine
learning models.
Airtel has carried out trials for 4G
and 5G Open RAN solutions on
select sites in the Indian state of
Haryana. Latest reports suggest
the operator has chosen Mavenir
to help deploy 4G and 5G Open
RAN at 2,500 sites in rural parts
of India, expanding later to 10,000
sites nationwide.
inform.tmforum.org
additional features
& resources
21 | vRAN to O-RAN : an E2E automation and monetization path

27 | TM Forum Open Digital Framework

28 | TM Forum research reports

29 | Meet the Research & Media team

20 inform.tmforum.org
SPONSORED FEATURE
vRAN to O-RAN : an
E2E automation and
monetization path
Intro
Open RAN is becoming an
increasingly hot topic in our
industry due to its potential for
vendor diversity, cost savings,
flexibility, interoperability and
security. Indeed, with its ability to
expand cloud-native principles
beyond the 5G core, Open RAN
offers every network/mobile
operator the ability to make their
network more flexible, innovative,
reliable, optimized and capable of
fulfilling stringent requirements.
In this paper, we address the
development of Radio Access
Networks (RAN), with a specific
emphasis on vRAN as an
intermediate stage towards this
end goal. It also includes our
vision of the benefits and
challenges of adopting Open RAN
21
and its associated components
such as Service Management &
Orchestration (SMO) and Radio
Intelligent Controllers (RIC).
A “tactical” approach
RAN domain disaggregation aims
to provide mobile service
providers with a variety of
advantages. While cost reduction
is certainly one of these, recent
market studies reveal that the two
primary drivers are optimized
operational efficiency and
facilitate an automated RAN
transition. In the short term, vRAN
technology, which relies on only a
limited pool of vendors, seems to
be the most popular option for
achieving these objectives.
vRAN and Open RAN
disaggregate RAN domain
hardware into virtualized or
containerized vDU and vCU. The
O-RAN alliance encourages a
multi-vendor best-of-breed
solution for Open RAN, although
operators may reduce complexity
by disaggregating RAN
components with a few vendors
utilizing vRAN. This lets them
progressively incorporate
additional suppliers and go to
Open RAN with less risk and
maximum benefits. To enable this
evolution, vRAN architecture must
adopt cloud-native principles,
have pre-integrated service
blueprints, allow vDU/vCU
network functions to be
interoperable with third-party
radio unit vendors, and provide
openness and simplicity for SMO/
RIC function layer integration.
inform.tmforum.org
SPONSORED FEATURE
Fig.1: CNCF’s Cloud-Native ecosystem
Key roles of cloud
native and TMF in
RAN disaggregation
Operators have traditionally
leveraged both virtualization and
cloud-native network functions to
disaggregate their technology
silos. To support this, cloud-native
network functions across service
domains (e.g. RAN, transport, 5G
core, and extended domains like
edge clouds) provide a consistent
structure and framework for
portability, manageability,
observability, orchestration and
configuration management
– especially with Kubernetes,
Ansible, Prometheus, and so on.
The Cloud Native Computing
Foundation supports this industry
consensus (CNCF).
The TM Forum, CNCF and
other standards bodies have
all contributed to the
telecommunications sector by
offering a complete set of APIs,
apps, tools and frameworks to
22
facilitate vendor and industry
cooperation. Yet TM forum APIs
stand out in their comprehensive
variety of options for operators to
integrate progressively with these
APIs to fulfil their financial and
operational objectives. These
include service qualification,
ordering, catalog and inventory
management, activation,
configuration and more.
Amdocs OSS-integrated
SMO and RIC components:
easing the Open RAN
journey
To begin vRAN-based domain
disaggregation, operators can start
with a single or small number of
cloud native-based vendors. Such
an approach supports the objective
of making the RAN more open and
programmable by enabling
optimization of RAN resources that
are crucial for 5G Advanced and
future 6G technologies. Both
Service Orchestration &
Management (SMO) and RAN
Intelligent Controller are defined by
the O-RAN alliance to respectively
automate, manage and optimize
RAN domain resources, with the
SMO framework managing all RAN
disaggregated network functions
(vDU, vCU), including RIC functions
Yet to truly realize the potential
of RIC, operators will require
open APIs and interfaces. To
understand this better, let’s first
explain the two examples of RIC
specified by the O-RAN Alliance:
non-real-time RIC (Non-RT) and
the near-real-time RIC (Nr-RT).
Most consider RIC as being a more
refined evolution of Self Organizing
Networks (SON). Within RIC,
Non-RT RIC is seen as superior to
both the centralized version
(C-SON) and the distributed
approach of Nr-RT RIC (D-SON).
This means that Non-RT RIC is
considered the most refined
evolution of SON.
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SPONSORED FEATURE

Fig.2: Amdocs Intelligent Networking Suite for End-to-End Service/Network orchestration

Fig.3: Amdocs Open RAN Automation (ORA)

23 inform.tmforum.org
SPONSORED FEATURE
Fig.4: Service across realms leveraging vRAN/O-RAN
By supporting this latter approach,
Amdocs Open RAN SMO delivers
the following benefits:
Gradual introduction of RIC
instances for open innovation
Development/co-development
of rApps/xApps for typical SON
use cases such as Massive MIMO
Beam Management or Coverage,
Capacity Optimization (CCO)
and End-user energy efficiency
contrasting average energy
consumption KPIs
Ability to deploy xAPPs and
rAPPs to enable AI/ML edge-
based automation
Dramatic improvements of spectral
efficiency for improved revenues
Ability to develop private
network capabilities such as
mobile private networks, network
slicing awareness, network slice
subnet observability
Timeliness RAN automation
adjustments for advanced E2E
use cases (e.g. mobile private
networks, network slicing)
24
Amdocs Open RAN SMO forms part
of an end-to-end service and
network orchestration system that
leverages Amdocs’ industry
experience to improve service
experience and scalability. The
function pushes applications and
network services to the edge –
closer to end-users – and distributes
service intelligence to lower layer
domain-based orchestrators for
faster decision-making processes.
By working alongside edge
orchestrators that leverage
Kubernetes and Nephio capabilities,
Amdocs Open RAN SMO enables
E2E network services/slices to
transcend service realms from
CSPs to hyperscalers.
Collaborative opportunities
for CSPs/MNOs and MVNOs
To realize the potential of 5G to
transform the MNO business, it will
require significant investments in
radio, xHaul, 5G core and cloud
infrastructure. Yet even as MNOs
continue their transition from 5G
Non-Standalone (NSA) to Standalone
(SA), the challenge of monetizing 5G
technology will remain.
To address these challenges, MNOs
are exploring new collaborative
opportunities, such as asset sharing,
enabled by the automation and
optimization capabilities of 5G
technology. For example, Multi-
Operator Radio Access Network
(MORAN) and Multi-Operator Cores
Network (MOCN) are both solutions
that enable MNOs to share resources
and collaborate more effectively
with MVNOs.
Importantly, while RAN assets can be
shared, the same does not hold true
for SMO and RIC. Rather, these
technologies enable operators to
manage their shared resources
independently and facilitate both
radio allocation optimization, as well
as the configuration of either the QCI
parameters for each user session or
RAN network slice subnets.
inform.tmforum.org
SPONSORED FEATURE
Simplifying distributed
network operations with
SMO/RIC at the edge
The increased ubiquity of cloud-
native, Open RAN, and 5G will create
a need for faster software updates
and testing, adding complexity as
stringent requirements such as low
latency, jitter, availability and
scalability need to be addressed. At
the same time, as networks become
more distributed and move network
apps/functions closer to end-users
(edge) with disaggregated RAN
(vRAN or Open RAN) and 5G core
services, the need for software
configuration, testing and validation
will increase significantly.
These are areas where O-RAN
alliance’s SMO will play a crucial role
in the provisioning and lifecycle
management of Open RAN service
and its components by instantiating,
monitoring, upgrading and
reconfiguring the RAN service
components (vDU, vCU, xApp, rAPP,
and other applications). Yet to
accomplish the required end-to-end
workflow automation, it will demand
25
Fig.5 : ROMA architecture
a standardized interface between
SMO, continuous deployment and
continuous testing (CD/CT).
With a view to addressing this need,
Amdocs’ recently authored a
whitepaper on behalf of the Telecom
Infra Project (TIP), discussing Open
RAN orchestration and lifecycle
management automation for
multi-vendor interworking, focusing
on ROMA architecture. It utilizes the
ETSI NFV paradigm as a starting
point, and extends it to include VNF
and CNF orchestration. The figure
below illustrates one alternative
setting for the CD/CT platform in
relation to SMO, where it may be
seen as either part of or adjacent to
an OSS platform.
The whitepaper also addresses the
difference between the various
vendor agile procedures that
prioritize minimized time to market,
while maintaining current design,
deployment, testing, and operation
methods. It also proposes three
alternative deployment options to
improve the CD/CT operations of
vRAN and Open RAN.
Conclusion
RAN disaggregation offers significant
benefits for operators as the
ecosystem matures, allowing them to
begin with a restricted set of vRAN
capabilities leveraging a single vendor
or a small number of vendors, and
gradually move towards a multi-
vendor Open RAN environment. Yet
to fully realize the benefits of Open
RAN, operators should choose a
vendor-neutral and innovative partner
with proven expertise in the
communications industry.
The right partner should challenge
RAN’s exclusivity and the network
status quo, provide end-to-end
automation, and embrace open
architectures via a cloud-native
approach and open solution stacks.
Ultimately, choosing a partner with
such capabilities will be critical to
maximizing the benefits of Open
RAN, gaining operational efficiencies
and meeting the ever-increasing
demands of end-users.
inform.tmforum.org
SPONSORED FEATURE
About Amdocs
Amdocs helps those who build the
future to make it amazing. With our
market-leading portfolio of software
26
products and services, we unlock
our customers’ innovative potential,
empowering them to provide next-
generation communication and media
experiences for both the individual
end user and enterprise customers.
Our 31,000 employees around the
globe are here to accelerate service
providers’ migration to the cloud,
enable them to differentiate in the 5G
era, and digitalize and automate their
operations. Listed on the NASDAQ
Global Select Market, Amdocs had
revenue of $4.6 billions in FY22.
For more information, visit Amdocs
at www.amdocs.com
inform.tmforum.org
tm forum open
digital framework

A blueprint for intelligent operations fit for the 5G era

The TM Forum Open Digital Framework (ODF) provides a migration path from legacy IT systems and
processes to modular, cloud native software orchestrated using AI.
The framework comprises tools, code, knowledge and standards (machine-readable assets, not just
documents). It is delivering business value for TM Forum members today, accelerating concept-to-cash,
eliminating IT & network costs, and enhancing digital customer experience.
Developed by TM Forum member organizations through our Collaboration Community and Catalyst proofs
of concept, building on TM Forum’s established standards, the Open Digital Framework is being used by
leading service providers and software companies worldwide.

Goals of the Open

The framework comprises TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture
(ODA), together with tools, models and data that guide the
transformation to ODA from legacy IT systems and operations.
Open Digital Architecture
Architecture framework,
common language and
design principles
Open APIs exposing
business services
Standardized software
components
Reference implementation
and test environment
Transformation Tools
Guides to navigate digital
transformation
Tools to support the
migration from legacy
architecture to ODA
Maturity Tools & Data
Maturity models and
readiness checks to
baseline digital capabilities
Data for benchmarking
progress and training AI
Digital Framework
The aim is to transform
business agility
(accelerating concept-to-
cash from 18 months to 18
days), enable simpler IT
solutions that are easier and
cheaper to deploy, integrate
and upgrade, and to
establish a standardized
software model and market
which benefits all parties
(service providers, their
suppliers and systems
integrators).
Learn more about
member collaboration
If you would like to learn
more about the Open
Digital Framework, or how
to get involved in the TM
Forum Collaboration
Community, please contact
George Glass.

27 inform.tmforum.org
tm forum research reports

TM Forum | May 2023 TM Forum | March 2023 March 2023

REPORT REPORT BENCHMARK REPORT

counter a roadmap for establishing links:

partner
intelligence Asia-Pacific platform models
in the Open
using AI to telecoms
ecosystems: improve growth
API economy

who does what customer

and can CSPs
compete for more? experience
Authors:
Mark Newman, Chief Analyst, TM Forum
Dawn Bushaus, Contributing Analyst, TM Forum
Author:
Editor:
Teresa Cottam, Contributing Analyst
Ian Kemp, Managing Editor, TM Forum

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Ed Finegold,
Editor: Contributing Analyst

Ian Kemp, Managing Editor SUPPORTED BY: Editor:

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knowledge knowledge knowledge

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improving
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learned
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charting a course
IoT to cloud native
REPORT REPORT

at the mainframe autonomous

DIGITAL OPERATIONS
MATURITY:
networks:

edge: modernization: Author:

Rahul Gupta, Senior Analyst
achieving
business value
from
taking opportunities charting a course to cloud native to
beyond connectivity Editor:
from transformation
Ian Kemp, Managing Editor, TM Forum
Author: Author:
Ed Finegold,Analyst,
Ed Finegold, Contributing Contributing Analyst, TM Forum
TM Forum
Authors :
Editors: Editors: Dean Ramsay (Principal Analyst)
sponsored by: Ian Kemp,
Ian Kemp, Managing Managing
Editor, Editor, TM Forum
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Bridging boundaries with common standards
Working together
Handing over common standards to each other
Logistics chains knowledge
Cooperation REPORT
next generation
REPORT

into the future: next

can telcos
DIGITAL
DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS
ECOSYSTEMS generation
the settingnew
setting new
forfor
standards
standards
integration
integration CEM
now!
the Telefónica way

Author: Author: Mark Newman, Chief Analyst, TM Forum

sponsored by:
Annie Turner Editor: Annie Turner, Contributing Analyst
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28 inform.tmforum.org
meet the Research & Media team

Report Author: Report Editor:

Dean Ramsay Ian Kemp
Practice Lead Managing Editor
dramsay@tmforum.org ikemp@tmforum.org

Chief Analyst: Global Account Director:

Mark Newman Carine Vandevelde
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Editor in Chief, Inform: Commercial Manager:

Joanne Taaffe Tim Edwards
jtaaffe@tmforum.org tedwards@tmforum.org

Head of Operations: Digital Media Coordinator:

Ali Groves Maureen Adong
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© 2023. The entire contents of this publication are protected by copyright.
All rights reserved. The Forum would like to thank the sponsors and
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to learn more about TM Forum’s work
beyond connectivity, please contact
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