Is Open RAN key to the 5G future? - By Sean Kinney - Altiostar
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Is Open RAN key to the 5G future? By Sean Kinney JUNE 2016 SEPTEMBER 2020 Report Sponsors:
FEATURE REPORT
Introduction telecom giant being pinned down between now and 2025. For Open
The true benefits of 5G will be by a lack of access to components RAN radios, the firm projects ship-
realized with massive scale – some- and markets. In this report, we will ments will pass 1 million in the next
thing that operators will have to explore the latest developments in five years.
pay mightily to achieve. In car- the Open RAN world, including per- Dell’Oro Group VP and analyst
rier-led efforts to shift network spectives from vendors, operators, Stefan Pongratz conceded the pro-
economics in their favor, the Open politicians and other ecosystem jections may seem “overly optimis-
RAN (radio access network) eco- stakeholders in an effort to under- tic” given that Open RAN technol-
system has flourished in recent stand whether Open RAN is key to ogy is “relatively untested,” but,
years and is potentially poised for a the 5G future. “At the same time, the momentum
big breakthrough. A key distinction here is the is improving, and we have adjust-
Major global communication ser- overlap, and difference, between ed the outlook upward to reflect
vice providers like Telefónica and virtualized RAN and Open RAN a confluence of factors, includ-
Vodafone are exploring multi-ven- – virtualized RAN decouples hard- ing promising results from initial
dor RAN solutions for their network ware and software allowing net- commercial deployments, growing
footprints. In Japan, relatively new work functions typically run on support from the incumbent RAN
market entrant Rakuten Mobile has a proprietary technology stack to suppliers, and increased geopolit-
used an open architecture to build exist as software workloads using ical uncertainty acting as a cata-
its fully-virtualized network and is commodity or custom hardware lyst for operators to rethink their
evangelizing its open, cloud-native whereas Open RAN considers the supplier strategies.”
approach as bringing a huge reduc- same but adds in modularity where- Mobile Experts Chief Analyst Joe
tion in capital and operating costs. in hardware and software from Madden also sees a bright future
DISH is following a similar path in multiple vendors can interoperate. for Open RAN but drew an import-
the U.S. but has yet to turn its own To contextualize Open RAN mo- ant distinction between sub-6 GHz
internal efforts into a reference de- mentum, Dell’Oro Group recently gear as a coverage play as opposed
sign á la the Rakuten Communica- published a five-year forecast re- to millimeter wave-based systems
tions Platform. port that projects vRAN revenues, geared towards multi-gigabit-per-
Further, geopolitical issues have “defined as the proportion of RAN second throughput. Madden wrote
prompted an examination of ven- baseband/compute capex that that, “Almost every company in
dor diversification and how to will utilize general-purpose pro- the [RAN] market is looking into
foster innovation through govern- cessors for centralized radio units O-RAN, which will be the choice
ment investment; this is primarily and/or distributed radio units. solution for coverage problems.
a function of U.S. sanctions against Dell’Oro forecasts that capex will O-RAN hardware and software can
China’s Huawei resulting in the hit between $3 billion and $5 billion be cheaper while achieving similar
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FEATURE REPORT
coverage as traditional architec- Functional split a virtualized baseband unit, which
tures. Considering a five-year time- The notion of functional splits can be further subdivided into a
frame, Madden sees “rapid adoption in the RAN first came up in 3GPP central unit and a distributed unit.
of O-RAN” coming, but focused on Release 14 and was further defined That idea of subdividing function-
fronthaul and F1 radio interfaces. in Release 15. The high-level idea is ality, in terms of either physical lo-
Regarding higher-frequency sys- that the primary 5G use cases — en- cation, type of workload or both, is
tems, “We have...identified some hanced mobile broadband (eMBB), core to Open RAN and, more broad-
major performance issues with ultra reliable low latency commu- ly, 5G. And if different vendors pro-
O-RAN networks.” nications (URLLC), and massive in- vide different pieces, there has to
ternet of things — require a highly be an interoperability framework.
The vocabulary flexible RAN architecture marked
Like most things telecom, Open by a, well, split of control and user Central unit
RAN brings with it a complex al- plane baseband unit functions to The central unit, or CU, supports
phabet soup of acronyms and ini- enable a more feature rich, respon- non-real time Layer 2 and Layer 3
tialisms. Here we’re providing brief sive network that can adapt to sup- workloads like RRC and PDCP. In
explanations of some key terminol- port a wide variety of use cases and the context of Open RAN, this is
ogy. And, to be sure, this is a super- deployment configurations. software hosted on a server that
ficial description of the following The specific components, delin- can be located in an edge datacen-
terms and a fraction of the full set eated below, require open interfac- ter, cell site, central office, regional
of relevant jargon. es between remote radios units and datacenter, or even co-located with
Image courtesy of Altran
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FEATURE REPORT
the distributed unit. A CU can sup- elements can collapse together and the trial met its goals of improving
port multiple distributed units con- create a single physical entity with spectral efficiency. Measurement
nected via midhaul. different virtual functionalities.” and optimization xApps were used
to collect live network data. In this
Distributed unit RAN Intelligent Controller case the partners used Measure-
The distributed unit, DU, handles The RAN Intelligent Controller ment Campaign, Automated Neigh-
real-time L1 and L2 scheduling, (RIC) is a software platform re- bor Relation and Admission Control.
baseband and RF processing, RLC, sponsible for radio orchestration Describing the trial, Tavares said,
MAC and some PHY functions. Sche- and management; it supports ap- “It was focused on one specific part
matically the DU sites between the plications like mobility and in- of the city so not many sites. One
CU and the remote radio unit but, terference management, network thing that is important to learn
in both theory and practice, the DU policies, admission control and so from the architecture is that one
server can be co-located with the forth. In a vRAN, the RIC collects, RIC instance can support several
CU, at a cell site, at an edge cloud analyzes and acts upon network base station sites. The way the ar-
site or in a central office. data to optimize user experience chitecture is evolving, and especial-
using artificial intelligence and ly on 5G networks, you can have
Remote radio unit machine learning algorithms. The the RIC co-localized with the cen-
The remote radio unit (RRU) in- RIC comes in two flavors, near-real tralized until that basically han-
cludes the digital front end, some time and non-real time; the former dles that part of the baseband pro-
PHY layer functions, digital beam- runs xApps that pool data from all cessing. Then, from that, you can
forming and other features associ- forms of radio infrastructure to actually manage up to hundreds of
ated with legacy cellular radios. continuously optimize user experi- distributed units that are going to
RRUs come in a variety of form ence and network efficiency based be deployed in a city.”
factors informed by manufactur- on fluctuating demand and re- While the focus in this trial was on
er and site-specific deployment source availability while the latter RAN optimization, Tavares said this
considerations. takes on things like configuration, premise could be extended and open
Parallel Wireless VP of Marketing device, fault, performance and life- up “new possibilities of third-party
Eugina Jordan tied it all togeth- cycle management. applications on top of the network.
er: “The future evolution of RAN In June Nokia and AT&T conduct- Basically any service that would
will be toward dynamic function- ed a RIC trial on the carrier’s mil- benefit from having access to low
al splits...The functionality of the limeter wave 5G network in New latency could benefit from having a
RAN will be distributed between York City. Nokia’s Sandro Tavares, more direct connection to the RAN.
DUs and CUs as it is defined in global head of mobile networks For example, in just an anecdotal
5G...In different scenarios, these marketing, told RCR Wireless News way, if you’re looking to a video
4
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The definitive event shaping the future of Open RAN
• Policy Support
Should U.S. Lawmakers allocate federal funding for Open
RAN R&D?
• Supply Chain Diversification
Open RAN conversations are steeped in geopolitics, but
WHAT'S ON does vendor diversification make supply chains more
secure and resilient?
• Ready for “primetime”?
Was Attorney General Barr correct when he said Open RAN
isn’t ready for primetime?
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FEATURE REPORT
Image courtesy of O-RAN Alliance.
streaming service or a video com- standpoint. By promoting policies Telefónica, US Ignite, Verizon, VM-
munication service, you can have an that standardize and develop open Ware, Vodafone, World Wide Tech-
xApp that can optimize the delivery interfaces, we can ensure interoper- nology, and XCOM-Labs.
of the video to the terminals.” ability and security across different Shortly after its launch, Nokia
players and potentially lower the joined the group. Brian Hendricks,
The players barrier to entry for new innovators.” Nokia’s VP of government rela-
Open RAN Policy Coalition The founding members were: Air- tions in the Americas, in discuss-
In May this year, the Open RAN span, Altiostar, AWS, AT&T, Cisco, ing the incumbent vendor’s move
Policy Coalition was established to CommScope, Dell, DISH Network, to join, described an emerging
advocate for “vendor choice and Facebook, Fujitsu, Google, IBM, In- narrative wherein the Open RAN
flexibility in next-generation net- tel, Juniper Networks, Mavenir, Mi- ecosystem has created a falsely
work deployments,” as Executive crosoft, NEC Corporation, NewEdge adversarial relationship between
Director Diane Rinaldo put it at Signal Solutions, NTT, Oracle, Par- legacy vendors “and, on the other
the time. This is necessary, she said, allel Wireless, Qualcomm, Rakuten, side, folks that wanted to create a
“from a security and performance Samsung Electronics America, new ecosystem.”
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FEATURE REPORT
There is a sense among poli- that could bolster the U.S.’s position whole Policy Coalition is about.
cymakers, he continued, where, in 5G tech particularly as it relates Let the vendor community decide
“They felt like they’d be making a to Chinese companies and Chi- whether they want to compete in
choice. If they did things that were nese government-led investments. the space or not.”
more supportive of an acceleration Papa explained that Open RAN is While Ericsson has a formidable
of openness that they’d be harm- allowing “more innovators to par- presence in 5G networking with
ing us. We don’t think that’s true ticipate, which is good. But more more than 100 global carrier con-
either.” In joining the Open RAN importantly, the U.S. government is tracts, as well as an ever-advancing
Policy Coalition, Hendricks said, waking up to its role in supporting set of vRAN, cloud RAN and atten-
Nokia is saying, “Let’s eliminate the semiconductor market.” He has dant products, it has not thrown in
the point that we’re not together called out the Made in China 2025 with the Policy Coalition. In a state-
as an ecosystem and, perhaps, that focus on developing semiconductor ment to RCR Wireless News issued
provides an impetus for action.” expertise and other moves he char- in May, the Swedish vendor said it
The initial slate expanded in acterized as “a state actor tipping believes in “openness and that prod-
June with new members Ciena, the playing field…Our commercial uct architecture needs to evolve to
Cohere Technologies, Crown Cas- market in communications infra- support open interfaces and a mul-
tle, DeepSig, Hewlett Packard En- structure equipment is being dis- titude of use cases in the future…
terprise, JMA Wireless, Marvell torted by a state actor. We can let [But] this evolution needs to be
Technology Group, Nokia, Pivotal that happen or we can counter it in based on open standards and the
Commware, Quanta Cloud Tech- a similar way.” strong foundation built by 3GPP,
nology, Radisys, Reliance Jio, Rob- Mavenir’s John Baker, SVP of which has enabled the most wide-
in.io and U.S. Cellular. business development, discussing ly adopted global technology with
Since forming, the Open RAN the Open RAN Policy Coalition’s over 8 billion mobile subscriptions.
Policy Coalition has worked with launch, described the group as not 3GPP is also unique as anyone can
policymakers to gather support for focused on “setting mandates to enter on FRAND terms. This has led
“new and existing” vendors; estab- force people to do things. It’s pure- to a highly competitive and consol-
lish a global pool of “trusted sup- ly a recommendation to ensure the idated RAN market. Similar con-
pliers and service providers;” and industry takes the right precau- solidation can also be observed in
foster U.S. “technological leader- tions, if you like, in going forward other parts of the industry, includ-
ship both in 5G and future wireless in terms of building up the industry ing operations systems, chipsets
network development.” and widening the supply chain.” and devices. Furthermore, Ericsson
Parallel Wireless CEO Steve Papa Baker said interoperability is key is actively contributing to O-RAN
has emerged as a strong proponent to building up a more robust glob- and ONAP to further spur innova-
of governmental machinations al supply chain. “That’s what the tion, bringing forward global scale
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FEATURE REPORT
with a strong ecosystem. We be- interface workgroup intelligence. According to O-RAN
lieve in open and fair competition. n Open fronthaul interfaces Alliance, “Future RANs will be
To stay ahead in the 5G race, the workgroup built on a foundation of virtual-
U.S. and other governments should n Open F1/W1/E1X2/Xn ized network elements, white-box
maintain their market-based ap- workgroup hardware and standardized inter-
proaches through technology-ag- n Cloudification and orchestra- faces that fully embrace O-RAN’s
nostic policies. The focus of policy tion workgroup core principles of intelligence and
makers needs to be on speeding up n White-box hardware workgroup openness. An ecosystem of inno-
5G deployment through spectrum n Stack reference design vative new products is already
allocation and removing network workgroup emerging that will form the un-
deployment barriers.” n Open X-haul transport derpinnings of the multi-vendor,
workgroup interoperable, autonomous RAN,
O-RAN Alliance The group’s work adheres to two envisioned by many in the past,
The O-RAN Alliance formed in “core principles,” openness and but only now enabled by the global
February 2018, a combination of the
xRAN Forum and C-RAN Alliance,
with founding operator members
AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Tele-
kom, NTT Docomo and Orange. That
membership has since expanded to
include 22 additional operators and
more than 180 contributing compa-
nies representing virtually every
bit of domain expertise in the tele-
coms world.
The O-RAN Alliance is governed
Image courtesy of O-RAN Alliance
by a Technical Steering Committee
that guides the work of nine work-
ing groups:
n Use cases and overall architec-
ture workgroup
n Non-real time RIC and A1 inter-
face workgroup
n Near-real time RIC and E2
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FEATURE REPORT
industry-wide vision, commitment
and leadership of O-RAN Alliance
Image courtesy of Telecom Infra Project
members and contributors.”
To date, O-RAN Alliance has pub-
lished more than 50 specifications
ranging from DU-CU architecture
and APIs and indoor picocell hard-
ware architecture and require-
ments for sub-6 GHz to cloud archi-
tecture and deployment scenarios
for open vRAN and AI/ML work-
flow description and requirements.
Telecom Infra Project providers — makes it challenging architecture and innovation,
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) for operators to efficiently build Deutsche Telekom
got its start in 2016 by Facebook and upgrade networks.” n Howard Watson, CEO of technol-
and rather than the specification The TIP board of directors is made ogy, service and operations, BT
work O-RAN Alliance engages in, up of: TIP is organized into three broad
TIP focuses its efforts on building n TIP Chairman and President project groups – access, transport,
and deploying infrastructure “to Yago Tenorio, head of network and core and services. Here we’ll fo-
advance global connectivity.” The strategy and architecture, cus access project sub-groups:
group is dedicated to expanding Vodafone n OpenRAN works to “define and
the reach and quality of connec- n Aaron Bernstein, director of build 2G, 3G and 4G RAN solu-
tivity – connecting the unconnect- connectivity ecosystem pro- tions based on general-purpose
ed. According to TIP, “Half of the grams, Facebook hardware and software-defined
world’s population is still not con- n Caroline Chan, vice president technology.”
nected to the internet...This limits and general manager, 5G In- n OpenRAN 5G NR works to “de-
access to the multitude of con- frastructure Division, Network fine a whitebox platform for a
sumer and commercial benefits Platforms Group, Intel 5G NR access point that is easy
provided by the internet, thereby n David Del Val Latorre, direc- to configure and deploy.”
impacting GDP growth globally. tor of product innovation, To get an understanding of how
However, a lack of flexibility in the Telefónica TIP is translating its collabora-
current solutions — exacerbated n Adburazak Mudesir, senior tive work into field trials, con-
by a limited choice in technology vice president of technology sider Vodafone; the operator has
9
FEATURE REPORT
engaged in trial activity in Mo- investment we’re making today is
zambique, Democratic Republic basically to make sure a number of
of Congo, the U.K. and Ireland. OEMs can take advantage of com-
Indosat Ooredoo and Smartfren mon, proven hardware SKUs...This
are working on OpenRAN in Indo- is a way that we can accelerate the
nesia. Related work is going on in availability of competitive SKUs
Malaysia, the United Arab Emir- that can be shipped all over the
ates and North America. world for both rural applications
Another key TIP development is and dense urban.”
the Evenstar project, announced in
February this year. Vodafone, Deut- The pros
sche Telekom, Mavenir, Parallel We know the lingo, we know the
Wireless, MTI, AceAxis and Face- players, so let’s frame the Open RAN
“By focusing now on converting
book Connectivity collaborated on value proposition to better under-
[RAN] to an open architecture,
the Evenstar RRU for 4G and 5G stand the benefits of disaggregat-
an open standard and a
Open RAN deployments. ing radio hardware and software,
potential to source white box
Facebook Connectivity Vice trading single-purpose equipment hardware, I think this really
President Dan Rabinovitsj dis- for general-purpose hardware and changes the game.”
cussed the social media giant’s moving vital network functions Dan Rabinovitsj, Vice President,
role in TIP and how the focus isn’t into the cloud. First and foremost, Facebook Connectivity
finding a silver bullet for connect- network economics need to change;
ing the 3.5 billion people that don’t for 5G to scale and provide the kind stuff, particularly RAN equipment.
have access to reliable broadband, of meaningful business value tout- By focusing now on converting that
but rather “investing in a building ed in press releases and sales briefs, to an open architecture, an open
block strategy” and recognizing something has to give. Telecom op- standard and a potential to source
the economic realities requiring erators are dropping billions of dol- white box hardware, I think this re-
this paradigm shift. lars every year into building net- ally changes the game.”
Building networks, from acquir- works yet are met with stagnating Tying that specifically to Open
ing the spectrum to deploying, ARPUs, operational complexities RAN, he continued: “The reason
densifying and upgrading, is in- that introduce more costs, and it’s why Open RAN has become so in-
credibly expensive and moving to a not sustainable. teresting is because, for the first
cloud-based network and webscale Rabinovitsj described it as “an time, the telecom infra industry
operation can address that. With economic imperative. [Operators and the mobile operators that are
Evenstar, Rabinovitsj said, “The are] going to be buying a lot more driving the purchase of a lot of
10Enabling the
O-RAN of the
Future Today
Disaggregated 4G & 5G
Mobile Access
Innovative and Disaggregated—Open RAN is Now a Reality!
Open RAN delivers the promise of establishing a unique ecosystem that enables faster service innovation and reduces
costs. Radisys is a proven thought leader in the Open RAN domain and an active contributor to global Open RAN
initiatives such as the O-RAN Alliance, TIP, Open RAN Policy Coalition, OTIC and ONF.
Software Defined Unbundled Programmable Flexible
Architecture that allows Unbundling the RAN is Facilitates deployments that With Open RAN, operators
white box RAN hardware to enabling disaggregated are programmable and are able to construct a new,
enable a truly interoperable control/data and open APIs. tailored to perform flexible architecture that
and open network. effectively in real world eliminates vendor lock-in
network conditions. and reduces total cost of
ownership.
Ready to learn more? Connect with us at sales@radisys.com.FEATURE REPORT
this equipment, they realize they your goal is coverage, you can eco- proprietary. It was all very limited
need to get away from their mono- nomically expand by using exist- in choice. The biggest advantage it
lithic supply chain.” Following the ing central offices or regional data gives operators is the freedom to
predominant thinking means op- centers to support CUs that can choose the individually disaggre-
erators “effectively...end up with be connected to DUs and RRUs in gated components from different
very little control over the outcome areas that need better cellular cov- vendors. The best in class that suits
themselves. They’re very depen- erage. If the angle is an enterprise their use cases while knowing full
dent on their suppliers to deliver network, a CU could be hosted at an well that the open interfaces mean
the technology, the experience and existing core site and a DU turned that they should all work when
also the pace of innovation. This up in an on-prem data center; add plugged and played together.”
has really been one of the founding some radios and you’ve got a cam- Speaking in a keynote address
principles of TIP – let’s disaggregate pus network. This ability to cus- during IFA, Qualcomm President
the hardware and software, let’s re- tomize parallels the broad premise Cristiano Amon discussed the
invigorate the tech stack inside of of 5G as a flexible network that can company’s role in Open RAN–he
mobile operators because they lost be what the user needs it to be. said modern networks are becom-
the engineering muscle that they As Viavi Solutions’ Marketing ing more “virtual, modular and
used to have. By doing that, this cre- Manager Owen O’Donnell put it, interoperable. Cellular infrastruc-
ates a more diverse supply chain, it “[Operators] couldn’t plug and play ture is evolving to become more
gives operators more freedom to bits of [infrastructure] between open, innovative and competitive.”
choose how and when they’re going different manufacturers. It was all The roadmap for 5G encompasses
to deploy certain kinds of technolo-
gy and features, etc...and also gives
them the opportunity to reshape
the operation of their network and
the maintenance and support and
deployment of that.”
Image courtesy of Qualcomm
As mentioned above, another
big driver of Open RAN is option-
ality – letting operators mix and
match equipment and vendors and
products which, in turn, allows for
more flexibility in how networks
are built and what those networks
can support in terms of use cases. If
12FEATURE REPORT
a huge variety of use cases; in this We’re one of the few companies RAN – what are the areas where,
context, flexibility will be key. that have the assets that we can first of all, we can achieve the
Qualcomm’s 5G RAN platform, build the engine of the new Open best results in a shorter period of
initially launched in 2018, is being RAN base station and we’re very time and what are the areas that
used by numerous infrastructure excited about that opportunity.” add a lot of complexity and need a
providers, including Airspan, Al- Deutsche Telekom earlier this bit more work before they become
tiostar, Baicells, Corning, Radisys, year announced it is working with a reality?”
Rakuten, Samsung, Sercomm and VMware and Intel on an “open and He said Nokia is taking a prag-
now, Japanese powerhouses Fujitsu intelligent virtual RAN…plat- matic approach meant to “get the
and NEC. form, based on O-RAN standards.” benefits of openness with more
In response to a question from DT Board Member Claudia Nemat choices for our customers, the
RCR Wireless News, Amon dis- also appeared during Amon’s innovation that comes with the
cussed Open RAN as a potential keynote. She linked Open RAN to functionality like RIC, but without
vector of disruption to traditional “flexibility, scalability and accel- losing too much on performance or
network equipment providers. “I erated innovation…Open RAN for without delaying the adoption of
believe that vRAN and Open RAN me primarily means a modular these advanced features that are
creates a huge opportunity for some hardware and software setup uti- actually being required by our cus-
of the network equipment provid- lizing all the benefits coming from tomers right now.”
ers that will lead the transition in virtualization and cloud together In June, Nokia announced com-
what Infrastructure 2.0 is.” He said with open interfaces.” mercial availability later this year
incumbents could “take a leading While the Open RAN conversa- of its AirScale Cloud RAN solution
role in the software that will run tion is often focused on smaller, with general availability follow-
in those networks and will provide newer equipment suppliers, it’s im- ing in 2021. This builds on what
feature parity between the existing portant to note that major incum- Nokia calls a vRAN 1.0 configura-
systems and the new systems.” bent vendors like Ericsson, Nokia tion which has been in commercial
He added, “It could be an interest- and Samsung are all tracking the use in the U.S. since 2019. The next
ing opportunity for some of the ex- opportunity and adapting their step, vRAN 2.0, expands on that to
isting players to, over time, evolve product portfolios. include a DU running on gener-
into a very powerful software Nokia’s Tavares, head of global al-purpose x86 server hardware as
provider in addition to what they mobile networks marketing, said well as a fronthaul gateway. “The
do today in providing an integrat- there’s a lot of merit to Open RAN, result is a fully cloudified and dis-
ed solution.” RAN disaggregation, “But there is a lot of hype around aggregated 5G base station that
Amon said, “creates a significant it as well. We are looking at a more provides scalability, low latency,
opportunity, I think, for Qualcomm. facts-based approach to Open high performance and capacity, as
13FEATURE REPORT
well as several network architec- the issue based on his reckoning quarter. The vCU component was
ture options, to meet ever-increas- that Europe is behind other mar- commercialized in April last year
ing market demands,” according to kets in LTE. “That has led to a loss of and is in commercial use in Korea,
Nokia. vRAN 3.0 will be marked by a lot of economic value in Europe as Japan and the United States. The
the addition of GPU-based hard- a continent,” he said during a July vendor is planning to trial the vDU
ware acceleration capabilities. earnings call. in North America later this year.
Ericsson, which this passed 100 “We are going to be a participant,” While a virtual RAN can be made
commercial 5G contracts, is an ac- he said. “We’re already active. But open with the integration of open
tive, contributing member of the for the high performance applica- radio interfaces, a virtual RAN can
O-RAN Alliance, but is significant- tions, today we do not see O-RAN also be a proprietary kit. Samsung’s
ly more bullish on its integrated, as a way to speed up the rollout. It’s latest ticks both boxes. Alok Shah,
virtualized RAN products more so rather a way to slow down right vice president of networks strate-
than going full-on with Open RAN. now. When O-RAN is ready, we’re gy, told RCR Wireless News, “Sam-
Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm made going to be there. If we are going to sung is a leader in Open RAN, and
clear the company isn’t going to repeat that mistake [with 5G] in Eu- as an active contributor to stan-
eschew Open RAN during a July rope, I think the European economy dards groups like 3GPP and O-RAN
earnings call but contextualized has a problem. Europe, as a conti- Alliance, we have achieved open
nent, needs to not be behind in 5G… fronthaul interoperability with
The big value of 5G is not the net- multiple vendors…and for multiple
work, the network infrastructure. operator networks. Our fully virtu-
It’s not the operators. It’s actually alized RAN solution supports our
the applications that run on top of growing portfolio of O-RAN-com-
the network.” pliant radio solutions.”
Samsung in July announced a vir- Samsung is growing its share of
tualized 5G RAN solution compris- global networks business with Tier
ing virtualized CUs and DUs and up- 1 deals in the U.S., Canada, Korea,
dated radios. And in keeping with Japan and New Zealand. In the
the Open RAN trend, Samsung said latest blockbuster infra deal, Sam-
its new vRAN solution will work sung snagged a five-year, $6.6 bil-
with radio interfaces developed lion contract with Verizon. While
“When O-RAN is ready, we’re
going to be there.” within the O-RAN Alliance. The little has been released about the
company said the 5G vRAN solu- details of the contract, including
Börje Ekholm, President and CEO,
Ericsson tion, which runs on generic x-86 the specific equipment being pro-
hardware, will be available this vided to Verizon, Samsung said in a
14FEATURE REPORT
statement that the pair will “con- integration costs as someone has
tinue to push the boundaries of to do the work, and be paid for it,
5G innovation,” confirming that at of integrating multi-vendor kit.
least a portion of the deal is direct- There are also questions around the
ly related to 5G. ability to scale Open RAN in a way
Back to this idea of Open RAN as that retains performance parity as-
an economic imperative, Parallel sociated with an integrated infra-
Wireless’ CEO Papa touched on the structure stack. And another issue
notion of openness as it relates to we’ll explore further on this paper
RAN and also how geopolitics and is around security.
history should inform lawmakers’ Ericsson’s Paul Challoner, vice
current postures toward fostering a president of network product solu-
U.S. telecom ecosystem. He said the tions, acknowledged there’s “poten-
“I think the industry has to
Open RAN business model matches tially [a] reduction in capex through
work through those integration
the generational shift in cellular. commoditization of some of the
challenges. Ultimately it can be
“The economics of a coverage tech- products, [but] how many of the done...But that’s going to take
nology and architecture don’t scale integration costs are one time and some time to work through.”
well as a capacity architecture. The how many are recurring through- Paul Challoner, Vice President
entire business models of the incum- out hardware/software lifecycle of Network Product Solutions,
bent vendors don’t work and don’t management?” Ericsson
map to what the people deploying Challoner continued: “I think the
the equipment require given the industry has to work through those can then provide millions of radi-
economic realities.” integration challenges. Ultimately os around the world every year?”
it can be done. But the specifica- All in all, he said of Open RAN,
The cons tions need more maturity and there “I think it’s a journey. We need to
While the benefits of Open RAN needs to be constructs, open lab take the Open RAN architectures
(advantageous network econom- structures, to do that integration. and evolve those so they can meet
ics and deployment flexibility But that’s going to take some time the demanding requirements of
chief among them), there are to work through.” today’s networks.”
also well-articulated issues asso- He also raised the question of To address the perceived chal-
ciated with the technology. One scalability, particularly as it re- lenges of integration, Viavi’s
question is whether operators are lates to supplying compatible ra- O’Donnell points to test and
trading reduced capex related to dio. “Who is it that makes the radi- validation work that can be
RAN infrastructure for increased os? And which Open RAN vendors done in laboratories settings or
15FEATURE REPORT
Image courtesy of Viavi Solutions
environments like the Open Test the finger pointing will be worked norm of just having two or three
and Integration Center, a consor- out in the lab...before it’s deployed. vendors. The new dimension or
tium focused on letting operators If you’re doing a network slicing the new reality of having multi-
and vendors test out Open RAN test and the latency is not matching ple vendors is sometimes scary for
solutions prior to deployment. the requirements, then it’s in the lab the operators. One reason is the
This gets to the heart of the ques- that you’ll be able to monitor the integration costs and second is the
tion around, if an Open RAN site latency KPI from the RU to the DU time taken to integrate. That is
has an issue, which of the multiple and from the DU to the CU.” not a completely solved puzzle yet.
vendors does an operator look to? “If More on balancing capex savings There are companies looking at
somehow the overall KPI is failing, with more complex integration, this space, Radisys being one such
how do you point to the individu- Radisys Vice President of Engi- system integrator.”
al component that’s causing the neering Ganesh Shenbagaraman So what do two major U.S. opera-
problem?” he mused. “That’s going said, “This is a question that is of- tors think? In September, the U.S.
to be an issue. But, from our point ten seen from an operator point of Federal Communications Commis-
of view, it’s testing. The testing and view. There has been a tradition or sion brought together a variety of
16FEATURE REPORT
not unique to Open RAN.
“O-RAN is still developing speci-
fications at this time and some are
further along,” Bigler said. “Having
specs alone does not guarantee in-
teroperability or performance. We
really see that integration is the
biggest challenge ahead. You really
don’t find the issues or gaps with
the specs until you actually try to
integrate two vendors’ equipment.”
In terms of how Open RAN fits
into AT&T deployment plans,
“O-RAN is still developing
“The testing and the finger Bigler said she foresees a “gradual
specifications at this time
pointing will be worked out in introduction of Open RAN into our
and some are further along.
the lab...before it’s deployed.” existing network.”
Having specs alone does not
Owen O’Donnell, Marketing Lori Fountain, director of net- guarantee interoperability or
Manager, Viavi Solutions work infrastructure planning with performance.”
Verizon, made clear that Verizon Laurie Bigler, Assistant Vice
Open RAN stakeholders for its Fo- is “a player in O-RAN as well as an President, Member Tech Staff,
rum on 5G Open Radio Access Net- early adopter,” but said incorpora- Access Analytics and Systems,
works. During the event, AT&T’s tion of the emerging technology is AT&T
Laurie Bigler, assistant vice presi- “a journey. We’re kind of at the first
dent and tech staff member for ac- step of that journey, which is the and in a timeframe that success-
cess analytics and systems, point- ability to mix and match baseband fully allows the network to mature
ed to trials of the Radio Intelligent software with an open [radio unit] gracefully but, at the same time,
Controller (RIC) the operator has and we’re excited.” protecting our customers.”
conducted on its millimeter wave She continued: “The challenge we Open RAN and security
5G network in New York as a proof see at Verizon is scale and maturity. One reason Open RAN is receiving
point of the company’s interest, We have a mature network here at so much attention at the moment
but also noted challenges around Verizon and it’s not a greenfield net- relates to Chinese infrastructure
“ensuring the reliability, integrity work. We support O-RAN entirely powerhouse Huawei. In the larg-
and performance for our custom- and know it is the future. We will be er and ongoing geopolitical battle
ers,” which she acknowledged is adopting this critical architecture between China and the U.S., the
18FEATURE REPORT
telecom sector has emerged as a key Huawei equipment. The FCC re- near-real time RIC and the
front. U.S. policymakers have man- cently collected information from xApps it supports;
dated the removal of Huawei gear U.S.-based “eligible telecommuni- n “Decoupling of hardware
from domestic networks and are cations carriers” that use Huawei increases threat to trust chain;”
working hard to not only preclude or ZTE “equipment and services.” n And “adherence to open source
Huawei from selling gear into the There are more than 50 companies best practices,” which the
country, but also broadly working on that list, including CenturyLink, author notes is “not exclusive
to curtail Huawei’s reach by cut- Hiawatha Communications, Okla- to O-RAN.”
ting off access to components pro- homa Western Telephone Company, Boswell continued in a blog post
duced in the U.S. This process is also Verizon and Windstream. that accompanied the paper: “Sever-
playing out in other geographies Pompeo said he’s “very pleased” al service providers intend to lever-
with the U.K. recently asking its that approximately 30 countries age virtual RAN in an Open RAN
operators to remove Huawei equip- have banned Huawei “and chosen architecture to build secure, open,
ment from their networks, which clean vendors.” He called those na- interoperable, disaggregated, vir-
was preceded by New Zealand, Ja- tions “clean countries” with “clean tual networks based upon industry
pan and other countries cutting the telcos...The clean network maximiz- standards. As the industry evolves
vendor out of 5G builds. es connectivity without risk from towards RAN virtualization, with
U.S. Secretary of State Mike untrusted vendors and stops the 3GPP or O-RAN, it is important that
Pompeo, kicking off the Federal CCP censorship of Americans.” a risk-based approach is taken to
Communication Commission’s Sep- Ericsson recently published a pa- adequately address security risk. Se-
tember Forum on 5G Open Radio per titled, “Security considerations cure Open RAN systems may require
Access Networks, didn’t mince of Open RAN,” that, at a high-lev- additional security measures not yet
words in addressing what he called el, framed the issue of security in fully addressed, a trusted stack for
the “China challenge...The Chinese Open RAN versus an integrated software and hardware, and interop-
Communist Party is leveraging RAN as having “the potential to ex- erability between vendors with a
it’s technological prowess to erode pand the threat and attack surface common understanding and imple-
freedom and democracy here at of the network in numerous ways,” mentation of security requirements.”
home and indeed all around the according to Head of Security, Net- Ericsson made its position abun-
world,” Pompeo said. work Product Solutions, Jason S. dantly clear but that position re-
In his address, the Secretary of Boswell. Among those ways are: ceived some quick pushback from
State didn’t once use the phrase n Expanded threat surface based leaders of two major Open RAN
“Open RAN,” but he did heavily use on new interfaces like open providers. In a webinar focused
the term “clean” to describe coun- fronthaul, A1 and E2; on a newly articulated partner-
tries and companies that don’t use n Potential to exploit the ship between Rakuten Mobile and
19FEATURE REPORT
Image courtesy of Ericsson
“It’s a lot easier to find
cockroaches when the lights
Telefónica (which we’ll cover later control about what comes in and are on [rather] than fumbling
in this report), Rakuten Mobile CTO what goes out.” around in the dark.”
Tareq Amin and Telefónica Global Blanco said an open network lets Stephen Bye, Executive Vice
CTIO Enrique Blanco raised coun- the operator “see what is happen- President and Chief Commercial
terpoints on the security issue. ing...It isn’t a black box. We prefer Officer, DISH
Amin said he has “huge respect” to be open. Open RAN is not an ad-
for the Swedish incumbent but ditional concern...If there is a black when the lights are on [rather]
said, when considering “locked box, I cannot guarantee security.” than fumbling around in the dark
and proprietary gear,” security is In the U.S., DISH is building an trying to find something.”
rooted in the vendor telling you open, greenfield standalone 5G net- In a paper published in June by
it’s secure. “As an operator, you work using some of the same ven- the Open RAN Policy Coalition, the
should have 100% visibility. You dors Rakuten Mobile has worked group describes “common miscon-
should know, end to end, what with. Speaking at the FCC session, ceptions about...Open RAN is that
is happening in the network. Se- DISH Chief Commercial Officer open interfaces introduce security
curing the perimeter and getting Stephen Bye said, “We’ve taken a risk. In fact, these same open inter-
visibility is 80% of the headache...I sort of zero-trust model. The real faces, defined in technical specifi-
actually have a very contradicto- focus on a clean network is vital.” cations, provide a foundation and
ry opinion, that it is an extreme- On the security architecture of architecture for improving secu-
ly secure system because at least an open network, Bye said, “It’s a rity. Although operators procure
I have complete visibility and lot easier to find the cockroaches and integrate open RAN network
20FEATURE REPORT
functions in new ways, operators a mixed bag. On the one hand, Ra- this is the biggest tender in the this
bring the same expertise, diligence kuten Mobile is successfully run- industry in the world. It’s a really
and requirements for security and ning at scale in an incredibly dense big opportunity for Open RAN to
resilience to these environments.” urban environment, on the other scale. We are ready to swap out
Also in June, the Policy Coalition we see Vodafone U.K. focused in on sites if we have to. Our ambition
provided comments to NTIA as it Open RAN as a rural coverage play. is to have modern, up to date, low-
considers how Open RAN fits into So how do we square this apparent er-cost kit in every site.”
the National Strategy to Secure divergent thinking? In the U.S., Open RAN is being
5G. The theme was that essentially “We don’t see open RAN as a niche considered as a cost-effective way
that standards and interoperability play only for rural deployments,” for rural carriers to replace Hua-
create trust, and that virtualized Facebook Connectivity’s Rabino- wei infrastructure. Steven K. Berry,
and network function segmenta- vitsj said. “It just so happens it’s one president and CEO of the Compet-
tion enhances security. of the best places to go prove out itive Carriers Association, told us
According to the Open RAN Pol- that this technology is meeting the more than a dozen of the group’s
icy Coalition filing, “From a secu- full requirements of an operator. If members use Huawei gear and are
rity perspective, software-based you’re going to test a new suppli- grappling with the rip and replace
networking and virtualization er...you’re probably going to take a process. As to the role of Open RAN
enables additional security tech- more conservative approach when in that process, “Hopefully that’s a
niques such as sandboxing, mi- you get started. These rural areas cost-saving opportunity for many
cro-segmentation, containeriza- have turned out to be a really nice of the small carriers. We call it the
tion, and network slicing. There proving ground.” rip and replace but...we don’t want
are also important trust and secu- Indeed, Vodafone began testing any customers, consumers, in rural
rity capabilities of virtualization Open RAN, in partnership with America to go without service, so
enabled by modern hardware and TIP, in Mozambique and Demo- it’s really replace then rip. It’s going
processors. The end result is that cratic Republic of Congo. It has to be complicated. We’re working
through advancements in hard- since brought Open RAN to Tur- hard to identify where we begin.”
ware and virtualization, operators key, South Africa and U.K., and “Every network is different,”
have more tools to ensure the secu- late last year said it would include Berry said “There’s not a one size
rity and resilience of the network.” Open RAN suppliers in a tender fits all. People are feeling that out
covering 100,000 sites and cellular right now. It’s brand new. System
Open RAN for rural networks generations from 2G to 5G. Voda- integrators are sort of key to how
When you look at current Open fone’s Tenorio, also head of the TIP you get all the different slices of
RAN deployment patterns and fu- board, said in November at the TIP virtualized components together.
ture expectations, it’s decidedly Summit in Amsterdam, “Right now There’s a lot of positives there and
21FEATURE REPORT
we hope O-RAN, in fact, shows bet- Wireless CEO Steve Papa pointed network comprises 6,015 macro sites
ter promises on solutions for legacy out that the rural operators target- and supports more than 1 million
networks going forward.” ed as potential Open RAN buyers subscribers that use around half a
Shenbagaraman of Radisys need to ensure the durability of gigabit of mobile data per day with
concurred with Rabinovitsj’s as- near-term investments. And, that, 50% of that traffic being video and
sessment. “What many operators he said equates to investments not streaming. The company has said
are doing is taking a gradual ap- just in radios but also into “semi- this approach has yielded a 40% re-
proach. The thought process, or conductor innovation.” duction in capex and 30% reduction
the current thinking seems to be, From Papa of Parallel Wireless’
try it out first in a rural, less-dense email: “The biggest challenge for
environment. Even if the solution operators is ‘future proofing’ their
has some risk of failure...that’s tol- investments. They need to know
erable to try it out.” that if they deploy O-RAN, that be-
Recall Challoner’s concern yond just solving the rural problem,
around the scalability of Open they can also ultimately solve the
RAN – ”which Open RAN vendors high-end 5G massive MIMO prob-
can then provide millions of radios lem. In order for operators to make
around the world every year?” big O-RAN investments they need
Altiostar and Mavenir In June confidence that Open RAN can
announced they will work together solve their entire problem.
with equipment OEMs to develop Ericsson is also working to cap-
radio units compatible with the ture the coming spend on rural rip “I believe Rakuten is the only
frequency bands used by Tier 1 U.S. and replace, somewhere in the $2 company today in the world
operators as well as smaller carriers billion range. According to Chal- that has a practical experience,
with rural and regional operations. loner, “The Open RAN for rural is a [a] battle-proven organization
Altiostar CEO Ashraf Dahod said potential...starting point. The per- that understands what is this
the goal of the partnership is to “en- formance is less demanding than concept of Open RAN, beyond
sure operators in the U.S. have a tru- the urban environment. So rural is saying we’re going to create an
ly open and end-to-end infrastruc- an immediate opportunity.”
Open RAN coalition.”
ture that will be cost effective and Tareq Amin, Chief Technology
allow them to grow their business.” Operator focus: Rakuten Mobile
Officer of Rakuten Mobile, and
Group Executive Vice President
In a comment sent to media and Rakuten Mobile launched a
and Chief Architecture Officer,
analysts following the Altiostar/ fully-virtualized, cloud-based LTE
Rakuten
Mavenir announcement, Parallel network on April 8. Today the
22FEATURE REPORT
in opex. As it moves on to providing into the Rakuten Communications The business model and ROI for 5G
5G services in the near future. Platform which the company is is yet to be realized. I believe Ra-
Tareq Amin, Rakuten Mobile pitching to global operators, enter- kuten is the only company today
CTO and Group EVP and CAO for prises and governments. in the world that has a practical
Rakuten, has emerged as the most “When we meet with the govern- experience, [a] battle-proven orga-
visible evangelist of Open RAN and ments, we tell them that truthfully, nization that understands what is
the possibilities associated with a deploying telecom infrastructure this concept of Open RAN, beyond
virtualized, cloud-native network. is expensive and we think we need saying we’re going to create an
In addition to building its green- to reinvent that with our partners Open RAN coalition.”
field network, the company has and ecosystem innovators, so of Beyond just opening the RAN,
also packaged its network architec- course governments have a huge Amin is focused on pervasive open-
ture, including telco applications interest,” he said in a session with ness and building a network as a
and software from multiple ven- journalists. “I think it’s not just platform for collaborative innova-
dors, OSS and BSS systems handling about the security aspect of it, but tion. He has noted that beyond just
customer billing and activation it’s about making 5G far more af- disaggregating RAN, Rakuten has
systems, edge computing and virtu- fordable than what it is today. 5G disaggregated the procurement pro-
al network management functions, infrastructure today is not cheap. cess, working directly with vendors
Image courtesy of Rakuten Mobile
23FEATURE REPORT
to build the equipment needed to
help achieve the company’s goals.
But, “Rakuten has no interest to be
another vendor in this space. We
want to co-innovate, we want to
partner and deliver on the concept
of openness, partnering together
on leveraging open source technol-
Image courtesy of Vodafone U.K.
ogies and participating in co-inno-
vation on key industry forums, and
also creating a global network of
innovation labs to partner together
with global mobile operators, in-
dustry and government.”
Operator focus: Vodafone UK
Vodafone has made clear it ex- In a statement, Vodafone U.K. 95% of the U.K.
pects Open RAN technologies to identified U.S.-based Mavenir as Matt Warman, Digital Infrastruc-
play a big role across its multi-na- its Open RAN vendor. Mavenir has ture Minister, said in a statement:
tional network footprint. In the an end-to-end portfolio of telecom “OpenRAN gives mobile companies
U.K. market, the operator in August software solutions and has both the flexibility to use multiple sup-
brought live a 4G Open RAN cell virtual and open radio access net- pliers in their 4G and 5G networks.
site at the Royal Welsh Showground work products. The deployment This is vital to help the market
in Polys, Wales. uses Dell and Kontron servers for grow, build resilience and give
Vodafone U.K. CTO Scott Petty the CU and DU, respectively. people fast, reliable and secure
called the move an “important To Petty’s comment about closing internet connections wherever
milestone” and said Open RAN can the digital divide, Vodafone U.K. is they live and work...This technol-
“make us less dependent on cur- also working with its competitors ogy can make a real difference in
rent larger technology suppliers, on the Shared Rural Network ini- improving connectivity in rural
and find ways to reduce the cost tiative where the country’s oper- communities and I look forward
of rolling out mobile coverage. ators share cell sites to more eco- to continuing to work closely with
Open RAN can also help close the nomically expand coverage. This Vodafone and other operators on
digital divide between urban and government-backed program is our plans to diversify the telecoms
rural Britain.” working to provide 4G coverage to supply chain.”
24Maximizing your Open RAN Investment Whether your challenges lie in interoperability with legacy technologies, multi-vendor components, or optimizing the performance of your network as a whole, VIAVI delivers a one stop shop, for Open RAN testing. As part of the O-RAN Alliance and a contributor to the development of O-RAN Specifications, VIAVI understands the move toward Open RAN is a major shift in network architecture. Ensuring the cost-to-performance ratio in a multi-vendor open network is equivalent to or better than a traditional single-vendor network is vital. VIAVI offers a first-to-market and comprehensive O-RAN Test Suite to meet the needs of equipment designers, deployment and operational teams. The suite delivers true end-to-end network testing across the entire lifecycle to ensure you have the confidence that all components in your open network have been tested in a trusted and controlled environment. With years of experience working alongside all major NEMs and small cell manufacturers VIAVI has built a reputation as a trusted supplier of leading-edge cellular test equipment. Our flexible approach to Validation, Verification and Visibility allows us to support our customers with the various options and configurations that are required to deploy a successful Open Radio Access Network. To find out more about how VIAVI can help you maximize your Open RAN investment visit: viavisolutions.com/oran Command the 5G network.
FEATURE REPORT
Similar to the situation in the create a programmable network “is
U.S., the U.K. government in July a must because we need to monitor
announced that Huawei gear must huge growth in the data capabil-
be completely removed from the ities for our customers. This net-
country’s 5G networks by the end work needs to be open and we need
of 2027, following new recommen- to get all these capabilities.”
dations by the National Cyber Jump forward to March 2020:
Security Center (NCSC) on the im- Telefónica articulated plans to
pact of U.S. sanctions against the test Open RAN in Brazil, Germany,
telecommunications vendor. The Spain and the United Kingdom. At
government also confirmed that the time, the operator assembled a
it will also implement a total ban group of specialists to advance it’s
on the purchase of new Huawei kit ambitions. The following vendors “The traditional radio vendor,
for 5G, starting in 2021. The deci- were announced at the time: it is not enough.”
sion was made in a meeting of the n Altiostar, which Telefónica has Enrique Blanco, Global Chief
National Security Council (NSC) also invested in, to provide its Technology and Information
chaired by the Prime Minister Bo- vRAN software; Officer, Telefónica
ris Johnson, in response to recent n Intel to provide its Xeon
U.S. sanctions. processors to power servers Xilinx’s Mike Wissolik, director of
supporting baseband radio product marketing for the Wired
Operator focus: Telefónica functions; and Wireless Group, said the card
Telefónica, which also operates n Supermicro, a provider of a was developed in response to op-
the brands Movistar, O2 and Vivo, multiple telco solutions, includ- erator demand. According to the
provides connectivity services to ing those geared toward edge company, the T1 Telco Accelerator
more than 340 million customers computing and Open RAN DUs; Card reduces the numbers of CPU
in 14 countries, has for some time n And Xilinx for its Zynq UltraS- cores needs to operate a DU and de-
been crystal clear about it’s Open cale+ RF SoCs for 4G and 5G livers a 45x encoding throughput as
RAN plans. Speaking almost one radios. compared to a server running the
year ago at Huawei’s Global Mobile As an aside, Xilinx in September same functions without the accel-
Broadband Forum in Zurich, Swit- announced its shipping a T1 Telco eration capabilities. Wissolik said
zerland, Global CTIO Enrique Blan- Accelerator Card designed for 5G that at the end of 2019 and into the
co described the shift to Open RAN Open RAN with a focus on simpli- beginning of 2020, “Everyone came
as “extraordinarily ambitious.” De- fying fronthaul termination at the to us asking, ‘What’re you doing in
coupling hardware and software to DU and providing Layer 1 offload. O-RAN?’ As we were developing
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