[ad_1]
The rollouts of Open Radio Access Networks (RAN) are expected to pick up in the Indian market rapidly in 2024, according to Sanjay Bakaya, Country Head India, Mavenir.
The Indian market is one of the most complex deployments around the world, due to the sheer scale of customer volumes, population density in the cities and diverse conditions in terms of temperature and terrain. “And networks still must cater to customers of 2G, 4G and 5G and due to proprietary and non-interoperable deployed RAN networks, the challenge is bigger. Maturing the Open RAN product under these complex conditions, enables Open RAN to be ready for any market at much faster pace and scale around the globe,” Bakaya told ETTelecom.
US based Mavenir, which has been a major player in Open RAN technology space, says the technology is already a success in many of the markets around the world both in greenfield and in brownfield deployments.
“Open RAN is a technology evolution for RAN that every network and market will adapt to scale sooner or later. In India, Open RAN rollouts have picked up steam in 2023 and we do expect ramp up very quickly to large volumes in 2024,” Bakaya said.
India’s second largest telecom player Bharti Airtel had roped in Mavenir to deploy 4G and 5G sites in low revenue generating rural areas, with an initial target of 2,500 sites which will be scaled up to 10,000 such sites.
As per a report by EY, Open RAN is expected to reach around $44.7 billion by 2029 globally.
Traditionally, RAN – the basic building block of a telecom network – has been proprietary technologies of global players such as Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and ZTE etc. Telecom players have to buy an entire block – software and hardware from one vendor, while through Open RAN, they can mix and match software and hardware components, ultimately bringing in more innovation by diversifying the ecosystem. This also means a significant reduction in deployment/capex costs for telecom players while bringing in innovation and efficiency.
But now even the traditional players have warmed up to the idea of Open RAN. Earlier this week, AT&T announced that it will shift up to 70% of its wireless traffic to an open RAN network architecture by 2026 through a new deal with Ericsson worth $14 billion.
Bakaya said Mavenir has been working with Indian operators for deployment of Open vRAN solutions in brownfield networks.
With maturity of technology and wider ecosystem, Open RAN solutions are competitive and are ready for the mass roll out in high volumes even in cost sensitive markets like India. Globally, deployment at scale has already been achieved and operationalized by employing sophisticated automation framework which significantly reduces the cost of maintenance and upgrade of the sites at scales – for instance, we can upgrade more than 650 sites in a single maintenance window, he said.
[ad_2]
Source link
