Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and Vodafone publish fourth update, this time on service management and orchestration (SMO), and how AI fits in
Europe’s Big 5 operator groups have published the latest technical specifications they want from vendors. This Open RAN Technical Priorities Release 4 is an update of the documents published in June 2021 (Release 1), March 2022 (Release 2) and April 2023 (Release 3). It comes from the work carried out under the MoU on Open RAN signed by Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, TIM and Vodafone Group.
Each release has prioritised different aspects of Open RAN development. Release 1 focused on the main scenarios and technical requirements for each of the building blocks of a multi-vendor RAN. Release 2 mainly focused on intelligence, orchestration, transport and cloud infrastructure, addressing also the energy efficiency goals and targets to support sustainable Open RAN.
SMO and RIC roll on
Release 3 mainly concentrated on developing requirements on SMO and RIC building blocks and to enhance other areas such as cloud infrastructure, O-CU/O-DU and O-RU, addressing also the security topic to support more secure Open RAN.
The fourth release of the technical priorities has primarily focused on developing further requirements on SMO especially related to AI/ML framework, interworking with traditional RAN and slicing management and on Security with MoU operator vision about the zero trust approach and requirements for certification and also on cloud infrastructure mainly focused on O2 and Acceleration Abstraction Layer, while other areas have been significantly enhanced such as RAN software, O-RU and O-CU/DU.
Moreover, this new release focuses in more detail on the RAN hardware acceleration topic and various challenges related to both the look-aside and in-line acceleration card models. In particular, the RAN HW acceleration requirements are now contained within a dedicated section of the MoU Technical Priorities document.
Supplier guide and TIP
The Technical Priorities are those that the signatories consider priorities for Open RAN solutions. The technical priorities serve as guidance to the RAN supplier industry on where they can focus to accelerate market deployments in Europe, focusing on commercial product availability in the short term, and solution development in the medium term.
The five operators also intend these priorities to act as an input into TIP’s OpenRAN Release Framework. The Technical Priorities do not represent any alignment on procurement/product selection processes of individual signatories.
The overall objective is to promote a fast pace for the development of competitive Open RAN solutions in Europe, across other regions and ultimately accelerate the global adoption of the technology. The Open RAN MoU Group technical priorities will evolve over time following the progress of Open RAN standardisation, in the respective standardisation bodies, and the market development of Open RAN solutions.