Author: Tim Smith

Is Open RAN finally open for busines?

A bit of history and an explanation of Open RAN

In the beginning there was the A-bis interface, a GSM standardised interface that was supposed to enable any vendor’s base station (BTS) to connect to any other vendors base station controller (BSC) and vice versa. Unfortunately, the standard and the real-world implementation didn’t quite align, and all the GSM vendors implemented a semi-proprietary version of A-bis and thus Operators had to purchase their BTS and BSC from the same vendor. The only way of introducing competition was through geographic division of networks to vendors. The same happened in 3G with the IuB interface (Node B to RNC).

This meant less competition at the component level but at least there were several vendors touting their wares including: Nokia, Ericsson, Lucent, Alcatel, NEC, Nortel, Siemens and in the Asian markets Huawei and ZTE.

However, wind forward quite a few years and after considerable network vendor consolidation the competitive marketplace consists of far fewer players. Allied to this, western governments are mandating the removal of Chinese manufacturer’s equipment thus reducing the competition even further in the West.

The saviour for the Operators could be Open RAN (O-RAN), let’s explore what O-RAN is and look at a similar initiative from days gone by.

I must admit a few years ago I was a bit of a cynic when I heard that O-RAN was starting to gather momentum. I recalled initiatives like OBSAI (Open Base Station Architecture Initiative) which was a trade association created by Hyundai, LG Electronics, Nokia, Samsung and ZTE in September 2002. This initiative aimed to open the market on radio base station products by defining a modular structure for base stations, defining the standard modules and the interfaces between them, with a view to being able to mix and match modules from different vendors in the same base station. I was sceptical that this would fly as in effect it would potentially decrease the cost of the equipment that the very same vendors signed up to this initiative were supplying and increase competition between them. Unfortunately for the Operator community (purchasing these products) this initiative didn’t take off and the sight of a multi-vendor base station with modules from different vendors all seamlessly working together never materialised. Maybe the inter-operability was just not achievable or maybe it was being driven by the wrong founders?

O-RAN sits under the O-RAN alliance which was formed a full 16 years later in February 2018 by AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DOCOMO and Orange – note the lack of vendors in the founding community. O-RAN Alliance’s mission is to “re-shape the RAN industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualised and fully interoperable mobile networks.” Their website quotes three main streams:

• The specification effort => extending RAN standards towards openness and intelligence
• O-RAN Software Community => development of open software for the RAN (in cooperation with the Linux Foundation)
• Testing and integration effort => supporting O-RAN member companies in testing and integration of their O-RAN implementations

What the O-RAN initiative has done is effectively created the concept of three main building blocks:

• the Radio Unit (RU)
• the Distributed Unit (DU)
• the Centralised Unit (CU)defined 

The RU is where the radio frequency signals are transmitted, received, amplified, and digitized. The RU is located near, or integrated into, the antenna. The DU and CU are the computation parts of the base station, sending the digitalised radio signal into the network. The DU is physically located at or near the RU whereas the CU can be located nearer the Core.

O-RAN is “opening” the protocols and interfaces between these various building blocks (radios, hardware and software) in the RAN with 11 different interfaces defined including those for:

• Fronthaul between the Radio Unit and the Distributed Unit
• Midhaul between the Distributed Unit and the Centralised Unit
• Backhaul connecting the RAN to the Core

This all sounds very similar to OBSAI – standard modules or building blocks with standardised interfaces between them.

The O-RAN Alliance now has a real cross section of members, alliance contributors and academic contributors including Operators, tier 1 consultants, equipment vendors, IT software providers, IT hardware vendors, universities, and cyber security centres to name but a few – this initiative has a lot of weight behind it.

So how is O-RAN doing?

Vodafone announced an O-RAN deployment plan for the UK in June 2021 year – their selected vendors are: Dell, NEC, Samsung Electronics, Wind River, Capgemini Engineering and Keysight Technologies (interesting that none of the big four Radio Access Network (RAN) vendors feature here)  – they will jointly deliver the first commercial deployment of Open Radio Access Network in Europe (1) Vodafone’s initial focus will be on the 2,500 sites in the UK that it committed to O-RAN in October 2020. It is reportedly one of the largest deployments in the world to date.

This followed another Vodafone announcement in April 2021 regarding the launch of an O-RAN Test and Validation Lab on its Newbury campus to support the developing O-RAN ecosystem for the telecommunications industry. (2)

One headline that grabbed my attention in October last year (partly because of the grammar I have to say) was “Telefónica CTO Predicts Open RAN ‘Massification’ by 2025” (3)

Enrique Blanco, CTO at Telefónica, stated that within four years, “if everything is going well, up to 60%, 70% of the total deployment of radios will be done with this architecture,” “We cannot be sitting and waiting. This is not an option. We need to move very fast in trying to change the architecture because it is simple, faster, better, and finally, this is not our main target, cheaper,” he said.

In November the next O-RAN headline I noticed was “Orange unveils its very own Open RAN lab” (4) 

 “With the creation of an Open RAN Integration Centre, open to our partners worldwide, we want to accelerate the development of an open, intelligent, cloud-based RAN and create a rich Open RAN ecosystem in Europe,” said Michaël Trabbia, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Orange. “From 2025 onwards, our ambition is to deploy only Open RAN equipment across Europe.” 

Another advocate of 2025 being the year that O-RAN comes of age…..

Also in November 2021 Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, Telecom Italia and Vodafone Group pressed for regulatory adoption of five recommendations pulled from a wider Analysys Mason report Building an open RAN ecosystem for Europe to stimulate the open RAN sector to ensure Europe does not lag North America and Asia in the 5G era and beyond. (5)

Talking about regulatory / governmental ambitions another interesting development in December 2021 was the announcement from the UK Government as follows:

“The Government is today announcing, together with UK mobile network operators, a joint ambition for 35% of the UK’s mobile network traffic to be carried over open and interoperable Radio Access Network (RAN) architectures by 2030.

Open network architectures will play a key role in enhancing the security and resilience of the networks that we rely on – now more than ever – to keep in touch and do business. Following recent decisions the Government has made around the use of high-risk vendors and the introduction of the Telecommunications Security Act, it is right that the Government now sets out its ambitions to build a more competitive, innovative, and diverse supply base for telecoms.” (6)

Interesting that security was at the forefront of their thinking here, but there is also a recognition that the government decisions on Chinese vendors in UK networks has reduced vendor competition. 2030 is a long way off but this is yet more evidence of the building support for O-RAN.

What about the outlook elsewhere? 

In December 2021 Heavy Reading produced a white paper for QCT and Intel: “The Outlook for Open vRAN Deployment” this was based upon a survey of operators asking key questions on deployment status and plans.

The first question in the survey asked mobile operators about the status of O-RAN deployments in their company’s commercial macro network:

• 18% are deploying now
• 30% believe they will deploy within one year
• 51% believe they will deploy within two years 
• 1% are still investigating.

This looks very rosy for O-RAN but bear in mind that this finding does not indicate anything about the scale of the deployments.

Another question looking at reasons why operators want to deploy O-RAN gave the following responses:

• 25% for faster and greater control of feature development
• 21% to increase vendor diversity
• 20% for new service and monetisation opportunities
• 15% to improve coverage in new and/or marginal geographies
• 13% due to government mandate (I assume this is associated with removal of Chinese vendors in some territories)
• 6% for cost saving

This makes interesting reading with cost saving being at the bottom of the pile (aligning to the view of Enrique Blanco at Telefonica) although I am not aware of which communities were polled in the operators, I’m sure the CFO would put this top of the list.

What does all of this do to my cynicism and scepticism?

Well, I personally see a massive difference between the failure of OBSAI and the momentum that is building behind O-RAN. There is no doubt the O-RAN alliance is not just a small gathering of techno geeks pushing a standard or a bunch of hopeful small vendors trying to push their products. O-RAN has become mainstream, just look at Ericsson and Nokia publicising the benefits of O-RAN on their websites. An interesting point was made by Nokia last year by Jane Rygaard, head of dedicated wireless networks and edge clouds, arguing “it will take another year or two to determine which companies will last the pace in developing and rolling out open RAN” while warning about the risk of the technology becoming too fragmented.(7)

Once this alleged shake out has happened will this mean the traditional big players succeed in continuing to dominate the RAN equipment space or will we finally see new challengers rising to the surface and eating some of Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei and ZTEs pie? The Vodafone trial certainly hints at a move away from the big four.

Traditionally the vendors have dominated the standards setting for new mobile network technologies (e.g. 3GPP) and thus been able to design standards that meet their needs and enable them to continue to sell premium products in a fairly closed competitive space. Will the formation of the O-RAN Alliance by a set of Operators back in 2018 finally turn the tables on the vendors and allow the Operators to open up the RAN equipment competitive space?

Personally, I think yes, but I suspect the initial flurry of new O-RAN vendors will eventually lead to consolidation down to those with the largest share of contracts and may even lead to the big four buying them out and closing the market off again.

What does this mean for customers, will ORAN bring new services or speed up the delivery of existing services?

According to the ORAN Alliance website “O-RAN standards enable a more competitive and vibrant RAN supplier ecosystem with faster innovation” and “O-RAN based mobile networks improve the efficiency of RAN deployments and operations”Does this mean that innovation in radio networks will speed up to the extent that new features and functionality will enable new services for end users ahead of when they would have otherwise been available? – This is a complex issue as new features and functionality rely on devices (from the mighty Apple and Samsung’s of this world) also being capable and available to support them, if only a small number of O-RAN vendors are pushing these giants to support these features will they get any traction? However, a system which is more affordable and efficient to roll out may mean that areas that currently do not benefit from the most up to date radio network technology may become more affordable to deploy to; for example, rural areas. Coincidentally Vodafone’s UK deployment is to extend 4G and 5G coverage to more rural places across the South West of England and most of Wales, moving into urban areas in a later phase. This potentially means rural customers getting access to 4G and 5G services earlier or where they would not have received them previously.

So, is Open RAN finally open for business?

I believe it is albeit at a fledgling stage, OBSAI never really got to the kind of deployment level we are starting to see with the likes of the Vodafone trial and the support and momentum appear to be building more and more across the industry and even in government (in the UK) however, it is still a matter of time to see how the industry shakes out and whether it continues to encourage and support a diverse range of contributors and new vendors in a more open and competitive environment.

If you are considering O-RAN procurement or deployment in your network then get in touch with our team of highly experienced consultants with many years of specifying, procuring, and deploying new technologies.

1. https://newscentre.vodafone.co.uk/press-release/vodafone-key-partners-to-build-europe-first-commercial-openran-network/
2. https://newscentre.vodafone.co.uk/our-network/openran-uk-lab-research-and-development/
3. https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/telefonica-cto-predicts-open-ran-massification-by-2025/2021/10/
4. https://telecoms.com/512105/orange-unveils-its-very-own-openran-lab/
5. https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/home-banner/european-open-ran-advocates-demand-eu-support?ID=a6g1r000001QI5LAAW&JobID=961544&utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MWL_20211118&utm_content=https%3a%2f%2fwww.mobileworldlive.com%2ffeatured-content%2fhome-banner%2feuropean-open-ran-advocates-demand-eu-support
6. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/a-joint-statement-on-the-sunsetting-of-2g-and-3g-networks-and-public-ambition-for-open-ran-rollout-as-part-of-the-telecoms-supply-chain-diversificatio
7. https://mobileinsights.mobileworldlive.com/themed-weeks/nokia-plays-waiting-game-on-open-ran-competition/?ID=a6g1r000001QI5LAAW&JobID=954591&utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MWL_20211111&utm_content=https%3a%2f%2fmobileinsights.mobileworldlive.com%2fthemed-weeks%2fnokia-plays-waiting-game-on-open-ran-competition%2f

The news watchers amongst you may have noticed another win for Cellnex recently in Poland ¹. So what, I hear you say, Cellnex have been in the news a lot recently. This is true, they have been dashing through the aisles of the MNO supermarkets and filling their proverbial trolly with towers; in February alone announcements on $6.3bn to acquire Altice’s French Towers and €600m for Three Ireland (as part of a wider €10bn deal). It’s not just Cellnex either, American Tower started the year buying Telxius Towers from Telefonica for $9.4 billion. The acquisition included 31,000 existing communication sites, with a commitment to build 3,300 new sites in Germany and Brazil by 2025.

The MNOs have been busy spinning off tower assets too with Vodafone planning to float Vantage Towers, its European mobile phone masts business, on the Frankfurt stock exchange in March in a share offering worth about 3 billion euros. Orange also announced the launch of TOTEM its European masts company.

Cellnex’s expansion is reported to get them to over 100,000 tower sites. By comparison American Tower has nearly 200,000 towers globally, Vantage has 82,000 towers whilst TOTEM has 25,500. That’s a lot of towers moving out of MNO hands but there are reportedly still circa 170,000 towers still in MNO hands in Europe.

All of this is of course very interesting (if you are a tower deal watcher) but why did I start with the Poland deal? Well, this one is a bit different to your average tower deal as it also includes active assets – yes, the very radio network assets that MNOs have kept strict control of ever since their beginnings. Okay, admittedly MNOs have shared active assets between themselves in various installations and network sharing deals around the world but actually giving another party (that is not an MNO) the responsibility for providing all the base stations in your network is a different league of letting go of control.

In the beginnings of MNO life there was full control of design, plan, acquire, build, operate and maintain – these aspects were all under one roof – the MNOs. Admittedly there were contractors delivering some services in these areas but essentially the MNOs still owned the whole life process of creating and managing networks end to end. Over time contracting became bigger as the MNOs grew, minor works contracts became major programmes contracted out to tier 1 construction vendors and then as more cost pressures continued to be placed upon the MNOs finances and their ever-growing tower/site cost base (and associated resources), larger outsourcing contracts became the next logical step.

The scope of outsourcing grew beyond build to include operate and maintain as well as some aspects of radio planning. But the provision of the active equipment still sat within the MNO remit, after all, most MNOs are part of a larger group or have been at some stage in their life and so have managed to secure group discounts on active equipment pricing and commitments on vendor roadmaps etc. MNOs still wanted to control the specification and purchase of the active equipment and the associated interaction with the vendors on the design and availability of features and functionality of this equipment. It was seen as fundamental to the control of what was being placed in the network and whether it met the standards required by the MNOs.

In 2019 TDC in Denmark went a step further than outsourcing and created two companies TDC NET and Nuuday. TDC NET provides the fixed-line connections and the mobile network. Nuuday provides services through a variety of providers such as YouSee, Telmore, Hiper, and TDC Business. This is a classic network company/services company split.

The Poland set up is similar with a dedicated network infrastructure company Polkomtel Infrastruktura (spun out of the Polkomtel MNO) providing Radio Network infrastructure to the Polkomtel.

With the above types of operating models, the MNOs can still specify features and functionalities and even a vendor shortlist to retain an element of control but is the emphasis going to shift to specifying what services the MNO wants the network provider to supply them with and the MNO stepping back from tighter control of the active equipment in the radio network?

With all the activity in the Tower market at the moment and continued pressures on MNOs financially will we see more network companies (Net Co.) emerging in future deals? Are we entering the era of the Net Co. that plans, acquires, builds, operates and maintains all the MNO sites and network assets?

One could argue that some outsourcing deals with the major equipment vendors that have been placed by the MNOs are pretty close to this scope already but with the exclusion of network assets. And just how much control do you have in an outsourcing deal anyway, indeed how much control should you have for the provider to be successful to innovate and gain synergies from other deals they operate?

If tower assets have become the norm to handover to third parties and active radio network assets are following, then the NetCo could become the next logical step for the Tower Co. and the MNOs. Okay it’s early days with only a few examples globally and the CEO of Cellnex (Tobias Martinez) commenting on the Poland deal did state “Our expansion into active infrastructure is undoubtedly a qualitative leap and heralds a new reality for the company that broadens the development and growth options for Cellnex in Europe within telecommunications infrastructures “ make of this what you will…..

If the Net Co. is the next logical step, then where does this leave the MNOs – will they become the service company (Serv Co.) purely providing services leaving the Net Co. to provide the infrastructure? Will the MNOs all become the equivalent of a “Thick MVNO” i.e. have a Core Network but no Radio Network?

We can see an end state where each country has a national grid of mobile sites provided for all MNOs by a single Net Co; in the long-term having several Net Co’s in each country would not be cost effective. The costs of 5G deployment and the costs of dedicated spectrum may be the catalysts that drive this forward. Much as the MNOs do not want to fully admit it, mobile services have become a utility and a national grid of utility networks is pretty normal in today’s world so what not a national mobile network grid which sells airtime to the MNOs? The Net Co / Serv Co model fits this perfectly…..

If you need any help in any of the areas covered above please get in touch, at Azenby we have many years’ experience in the helping MNOs, vendors and investors make sense of emerging operating models and trends.

1 –  (https://www.cellnextelecom.com/content/uploads/2021/02/20210226-Cellnex-to-acquire-Polkomtel-Infrastruktura_EN-2.pdf)

So 5G is finally here with Verizon launching (as reported on 1^st Oct 2018) in four US cities; Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento. They are offering a wireless broadband solution for the home and promising ‘typical speeds’ of 300 Mbps, and peaks of 940 Mbps. AT&T is due to launch at the end of the year. Sprint’s 5G network is planned to be turned on in the first half of 2019 in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington D.C

Earlier in 2018 in June, Finnish operator Elisa claimed a global first in launching a commercial 5G network in the Finnish city of Tampere and the Estonian capital Tallinn.

In the UK EE is due to launch the UKs first live 5G trial network in East London in October 2018. A while back O2 was also reported as deploying a 5G system to the Millennium Dome with a view to conducting demos of virtual reality, augmented reality and live streaming in late 2018.

Devices are finally on the horizon with LG claiming it will launch a 5G ready smartphone with Sprint in the first half of 2019. Qualcomm is also reported as expecting to see 5G device launches in early 2019.

The standards groups in 3GPP signed off the new 5G New Radio standalone variant specifications in June after having already signed off the non-standalone variant in December 2017.

So progress is looking good towards 5G finally becoming a reality.

But what will 5G deliver?

On the radio side, there will be a new radio (5G NR) interface. Currently the scenarios or user cases that the design standards are considering to utilise a new radio interface are:

Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) Including – Indoor Hotspot, Dense urban coverage, Urban Macro, Rural coverage, High speed, Extreme long distance cells

Ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) For Indoor Hotspot and Urban Macro coverage

Massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC) Urban coverage for massive connections

Vehicle to X (V2X) Urban Grid for connected car, and highway coverage.

Let’s look at these in a bit more detail:

eMBB

The main thrust appears to be another hike in data speeds with DL targets of 20Gbps compared to LTE-A pro which is targeting in excess of 3Gbps. Allied to this is a target for lower latency of 10ms (current networks are delivering 40 to 50ms in the UK). So high bandwidth low latency services will benefit significantly. For the MNO the question is whether they need such speeds or indeed whether 5G will become another hygiene factor and without it you are simply not keeping up with the competition. How to monetise another step in data rates is another obvious question

URLLC

There appears to be general consensus that the future of many industrial control, traffic safety, medical, and internet services depends on wireless connectivity with guaranteed consistent latencies of 1ms or less.

Some emerging URLLC applications include:

• Tele surgery for remote surgical consultations or indeed surgical procedures.
• Intelligent Transportation – fully automated driving with automatic overtake and cooperative collision avoidance
• Industry Automation – Factory process, and power system automation
• Other possible applications of uRLLC include Tactile Internet, augmented/virtual reality, fault detection, frequency and voltage control in smart grids.

For the MNO the question is do they want to play in any of these potential application spaces, do they want to have niche segments as part of their propositions etc?

Massive Machine Type Communications (mMTC)

mMTC is aiming to provide connectivity with densities of devices of 1 million per sq km allied to battery life targets of in excess of 10 years. This is obviously to serve a mass deployment of IoT type devices.

However, mMTC is as much a challenge for the commercial and pricing models for equipment suppliers as it is a technical one. Typical commercial pricing for HLR/HSS not to mention SIMs is way above what is needed for mass device deployment in often low volume communications with low associated revenues. Whilst technically of course such a solution would work it is probably more complicated than is actually necessary which contributes to the cost/pricing problem.  With mass market deployment of IoT type devices MNOs will have to stop thinking about customer value in terms of $’s per month and instead think in terms of Cents per year. This means the complete mMTC solution needs to be massively optimised for cost.

Again the question is does an MNO want to compete in the IoT space or not, particularly considering the cost optimisation challenges above. There are alternatives in 4G technology such as NB-IOT and with LTE-Advanced Pro targeting further improvements in device power levels and subsequent battery life plus more efficient use of spectrum for IoT devices, it’s clear that 5G is not the be all and end all of competing in the IoT space. However the cost scalability remains a challenge.

V2X

V2X is the framework that will allow vehicles to communicate with each other and beyond. This includes vehicle to infrastructure (e.g. traffic signals) vehicle to network (for real time routing information) vehicle to vehicle (e.g. collision avoidance) and vehicle to pedestrian (for safety alerts etc.)  The functionalities to assist driver safety are numerous.

Who will own the value in this use case is an interesting question. Trials are ongoing with various operators, vehicle manufacturers, telco vendors and engineering companies but ownership of the customer and who extracts what value is still to be understood. Is this a space for MNOs / MVNOs or will vehicle manufacturers dominate the value chain?

5G Implementation

5G NR has two variants being considered architecturally . One based upon using LTE as an anchor network for control plane traffic and the 5G radio only will be deployed. Another is for a complete standalone version with both control and user plane traffic in a new 5G radio base station.

For the first variant one can envisage simple upgrades where the 5G NR is installed into existing 4G base stations (from the same vendor) however if this is the reality delivered by the vendors remains to be seen. This first variant should start emerging as fully standardised equipment in the next year. The first 3GPP Release for 5G – Release 15 had it’s functionally frozen in Sept 18. This release will include eMBB, the other user cases outlined above will be delivered later depending upon how the standards bodies finalise the roadmap.

The second (standalone) variant will no doubt require a whole new base station infrastructure and with some operators already wondering how they can make the 5G business case work this is just further cost headache they can hardly afford.

5G will also introduce other functionalities in the RAN that go hand in hand with the higher bandwidth and speed targets such as Massive MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) which require new antenna arrays to be deployed. Currently MNOs have been using 2×2, 4×4 or 8×8 MIMO systems on 4G networks but 5G trials have included use of 64×64 MIMO systems to deliver the increased radio performance. MNO antenna upgrade plans will be a major factor in 5G deployment if they are to achieve some of the service levels and data rates that 5G has to offer.

5G Spectrum

5G NR will also bring more efficient use of a range of spectrum by introducing more spectrum sharing capabilities and options to use mmWave spectrum over large bandwidths for high speed mobile broadband deployments. The spectrum aspects are interesting, according the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) report “Spectrum for 5G: Plans, Licences and Trials”, 42 countries had allocated 5G spectrum, announced plans to auction spectrum or were determining spectrum to be used for 5G as of the end of 2017. The majority of allocations sit in the 3400 to 3800 MHz range and with recent awards in the UK in the 3400 MHz band it will be interesting to see if these bands are the ones the equipment vendors support first.

However some countries are allocating spectrum in various other bands including 700 MHz, 2300 MHz, 4400 to 4900 MHz and 37 to 43 GHz to name but a few.

In the USA the FCC allocated approximately 11 GHz of spectrum above 24 GHz, in various bands from 27.5 to 86.5 GHz in 2016, with 1.7 GHz in the 24 and 47 GHz bands added for licensed mobile applications in 2017. In the traditional cellular bands below 6 GHz T-Mobile USA plans to deploy 5G on the 600 MHz spectrum it acquired in a 2017 auction, and Sprint will use its 2.5 GHz spectrum. Additional spectrum in 3.7 to 7.125 GHz range is also under consideration.

In a recent auction in Italy Vodafone and Telecom Italia were both awarded 80MHz of 3.7GHz spectrum while the other two operators secured allocations of 20MHz of the same band. Telecom Italia and Vodafone Italia also bought 200MHz of 26GHz (mmWave) and 20MHz in the 700MHz band. Iliad won 200MHz in the 26GHz band, alongside its 20MHz of 3.7GHz and 10MHz in the 700MHz band. Wind Tre acquired 20MHz of 3.7GHz and 200MHz in the 26GHz band.

A we can see the spectrum picture is pretty varied and so radio network equipment availability at different bands is going to be key.

Core Network Considerations

Connectivity to and compatibility with current Core Networks is also subject to a few variants but it appears that 5G NR will be able to connect back to existing LTE EPC deployments (although some upgrades may be required). The standards are considering both existing EPC and a Next Generation Core (NGC) as options for 5G. In addition, network slicing which enables different service types to be carried on separate virtual networks from RAN through to Core is also a feature of 5G. This enables user cases with specific radio and core network end to end requirements to be deployed in virtually separate networks to make most efficient use of network resources.

MNOs will therefore need to make further investments in core network infrastructure going forwards if they want to take advantage of the full range of 5G functionalities.

Conclusion

Overall there are certainly some interesting technical developments coming with 5G, with even more speed and bandwidth, options for mass IoT deployment, more efficient spectrum utilisation, and potential new market segments being serviced with dedicated technology solutions there appears to be some new opportunities for MNOs to explore. However the question is whether the new opportunities can be monetised by the MNOs and can the cost of deploying 5G be fully justified?