Wireless
Accelerating Open RAN Innovation: The Industry Impact of O-RAN PlugFests
Key Points
- CableLabs’ involvement in advancing the Open RAN movement has included serving as host of 5G Challenge events and semiannual O-RAN Global PlugFests.
- Most recently, the PlugFest events involved testing interoperability, efficiency, performance and security of Open RAN components.
- This work is critical to enabling operators to build more cost-efficient, future-ready networks.
The Open RAN movement is gaining momentum, with increasing numbers of operators and vendors embracing the potential of open, interoperable radio access networks (RANs). At CableLabs, we’ve been at the forefront of this movement from the start, hosting NTIA-sponsored 5G Challenge events in our lab, as well as O-RAN Global PlugFests twice a year to bring together industry leaders and drive innovation.
Building on the success of our previous PlugFests, we’re committed to continuing this work, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with Open RAN. In this blog post, we’ll take you through our latest efforts to test interoperability, efficiency, performance and security of Open RAN components.
Energy Savings Meet Uncompromised Performance
Together with Effnet, Red Hat and VIAVI, we tested ways to reduce energy consumption for cloud-hosted and resource-demanding telecom workloads by controlling the CPU power management feature. Doing so involved using the underlying cloud infrastructure to dynamically turn off unused CPU components and adjust CPU frequency in response to central unit (CU) traffic load conditions. This solution saved energy and reduced heat output while maintaining quality of service.
Furthermore, we looked at the impact that hardware accelerators like application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and graphics processing units (GPUs) have in offloading the CPU. We performed these tests by processing large volumes of data in parallel to optimize specific tasks (e.g., 3GPP high physical layer, AI training). In a true multi-vendor Open RAN 5G gNB implementation, AMD, Effnet, Phluido, Red Hat and VIAVI demonstrated over-the-air peak throughput values close to the theoretical limits while maintaining high virtual RAN (vRAN) workload efficiency. Peak-load MAC stress tests demonstrated scalability gains with hardware acceleration (HWA) enabled.
Continuing our exploration of ways to harvest energy savings from every RAN component, we took a closer look at the Open RAN radio unit (O-RU) radio frequency (RF) front end. In collaboration with Eridan, Rohde & Schwarz and VIAVI, we observed stable RU energy consumption even when higher modulation orders are used, thanks to the linearity of the power amplifier.
Automated Security Assurance in Action
Telecom network evolution to modular, open architectures on cloud platforms poses security challenges due to increased software interdependencies and interface exposure. To mitigate these risks, periodic and automated security assurance testing is crucial as part of network operations.
Mavenir and VIAVI have successfully demonstrated this concept by automating the testing of 3GPP service-layer security implementation, validating secure interworking across RU, distributed unit (DU) and central unit components of a distributed 5G base station. All of this builds on momentum from the Spring 2024 PlugFest.
Open Fronthaul M-Plane Enables Multi-Vendor Operations
By providing a standardized interface for managing RUs from various vendors, the M-plane open fronthaul interface enables multi-vendor RU operations, eliminating the need to integrate and maintain multiple proprietary management interfaces. During the Fall 2024 PlugFest, we observed the Eridan RU M-Plane successfully integrated with the VIAVI DU emulator to demonstrate adherence to the Open RAN Working Group 4 (WG4) technical specifications. The results of this test offer a promising outlook for future collaborations, as the knowledge obtained will be instrumental in multi-vendor operations and open standard implementations.
Get Involved in Open RAN
Guided by the Technology Vision for the network of tomorrow, CableLabs committed to driving innovation in network infrastructure. In the future, we plan to further explore innovative Open RAN implementations that enable operators to share infrastructure, scale economically, reduce total cost of operation and ultimately migrate to AI-enabled networks.
We welcome CableLabs members, vendors and application developers to join us at these upcoming events.