IEEE Global Communications Conference
8–10 December 2020 // In-person (Taipei, Taiwan)
7-11 December 2020 // Virtual
Communications for Human and Machine Intelligence

WS-15: Workshop on Open Road to Next Generation Mobile Networks (Open-RAN)

WS-15: Workshop on Open Road to Next Generation Mobile Networks (Open-RAN)

Open-RAN: Open Road to Next Generation Mobile Networks

With the acceleration of 5G commercialization and 6G research picking up across the globe, various mobile operators and service providers are moving towards disaggregated and open reference architecture that utilizes open components with standard APIs from a multi-vendor ecosystem. By leveraging Software Defined Network (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), mobile operators and service providers have successfully designed competitive and open core networks. RAN has evolved a lot with the advent of Virtual Radio Access Network (vRAN) and Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN) but the proprietary implementation of these cost-effective options did not provide enough research opportunities. This lead to the emergence of Open RAN which considers building up of standard open interfaces that help mobile operators and service providers to avail Base Band Unit (BBU) and Remote Radio Unit (RRU) hardware from various vendors to deploy multi-vendor networks (multi-vendor interoperability). Additionally, Open RAN also aims at automating mobile networks and build intelligent SDN. It also makes the network programmable and autonomous to cope up with the growth in ML, AI, automation, and low latency applications. Open RAN helps in enabling the flexibility and robustness in advanced 5G and beyond networks with the use of a standard open interface, which is used to communicate with other network components as well which is a key for the inheritance of cloud-scale economies in RANs. While saving on CAPEX and Operating Expenses (OPEX), Open RAN also offers a space for creating a wide range of RAN applications that will make RAN open and intelligent than ever before. Besides standardization of open fronthaul, Open RAN has several more key open research areas, to name a few:

  1. Overall architecture and use cases
  2. RAN Intelligence Controller and applications
  3. Virtualization and cloudification enhancements

Thus, Open RAN can be perceived as power for unlocking advanced 5G and 6G networks by investing and researching on open networks and open standards to explore interoperable multi-vendor business models. Open RAN brings in the opportunity to combine advancements in open mobile networks, spectrum availability, and intelligent network applications to stimulate rapid innovation in delivering profitable business for mobile network operators and service providers across the globe.

 

IMPORTANT DATES:

Paper submission deadline: August 14 (Firm)

Review deadline: September 08

Workshop paper notification deadline: September 15

Final paper upload: October 01

Patrons