演进中的RAN架构：嵌入灵活性与开放性的早期经验

EVOLVING RANARCHITECTURES: EARLYLESSONS ON EMBEDDINGFLEXIBILITY AND OPENNESS The RAN is evolving towards greater openness anddisaggregation, butthe pathishybrid and incremental. This report explores the challengesoperators face, early lessons from deployments, and why embeddingopenness and flexibility early is critical to long-term competitiveness. Executive summary Theradio access network (RAN)is entering anewstageof evolution, asthe industrymoves beyondvision statementsaround open anddisaggregatedRANintoreal-worlddeployments.Operatorsgloballyhavealigned onthedirection of travel:the future of RAN will be defined by greater opennessand disaggregation.Theseshiftsare no longer just aspirations; they are recognisedas essentialtoreduce vendor dependency,accelerate innovation andbringcloud economicsinto the RAN domain. Operators, vendors and ecosystem initiativesarenowdriving momentum through trials and earlydeployments, demonstrating tangible progress and creating a more pragmatic basis for adoption.Twothemesstand out: 1.Earlychallenges are being addressed,building confidence in adoption.Advances in hardwareacceleration are closing the performance gap with legacy systems, while joint testing andecosystem collaboration are reducing theriskofinteroperabilityissues in early stages.Whilethesedevelopmentsdo not eliminate the complexity ofachieving scale, theydodemonstratethat technical and operational challenges can be overcome,giving operatorsgreaterconfidenceto move beyond pilots. 2.The path is more hybrid and incremental thanoriginallyanticipated.Many deployments todayare blendingsomeelements of the fully open,disaggregated, multi-vendorO-RANvision,byopting for partial disaggregation–often through vendor-integrated virtualised RAN and mixes ofpublic and private cloud environments.This approach enables operators to capture immediatebenefits, such as reduced reliance on bespoke hardware and faster timetomarket, whileretaining the accountability of a lead vendor to manage near-term integration risks. However,this hybrid path underscores a critical tension.Prevalidated stacks and lead vendorintegrationcansimplify deploymentsandmaybe a natural and necessary step to ensure end-to-endperformanceand accountability in early phases.However,this may entrench new forms ofdependencyover time. Iftelcos’operating models,skills base and lifecycle processesbecome tooclosely tied toa singlevendor’s integrationblueprint,theyriskrecreatingthe very constraints thatopenness was meant toovercome. This reportexplores the current state of RAN evolution and the growing momentum across theecosystem.What is clear is that operators mustembed openness and flexibilityat every stagetomaintaincontrol over innovation cycles, supplier diversity andlong-term networkevolution. Ourrecommendations for operatorsare: •Embrace open, disaggregated infrastructure and horizontal orchestration to avoid new lock-in•Prioritise open interfaces to preserve flexibility andoptionality.•Invest in hardware acceleration to deliver performance parity in the short term•Architect the network for long-term modular upgrade and evolution. Table ofcontents Executive summary...............................................................................................................................................2The RAN is moving towards open, disaggregated architectures.................................................................5Early deployments are beginning to address initial challenges....................................................................7Concerns over technical, operational and commercial issues remain....................................................7Real-world deployments are beginning to address key challenges..........................................................8Flexibility and openness are critical to avoid lock-in and enable future innovation.................................10Two elements are emerging as central to avoiding this outcome: cloud flexibility and openinterfaces...........................................................................................................................................................10Key recommendations for operators...............................................................................................................13 Table offigures Figure 1:The hybrid evolution towards open, disaggregated architectures...............................................5 Figure 2: True multi-vendor interoperability requires both vertical and horizontal openness...............11 The RAN is moving towardsopen,disaggregated architectures The future of the RAN is defined by greater openness and disaggregation.Operatorsgloballyarecommitted tothisprinciplewhen consideringfuture networks,as it willreducedependence on singlevendors and createroom for faster innovation. Industry momentum is nowfirmly behind this vision,supported by global initiativessuch asthe O-RAN Alliance and growing ecosyste