The radio access network (RAN) is the next challenge for disaggregation for mobile and private 5G wireless network operators. The O-RAN Alliance standards development organization and associated open source communities represent the final frontier for virtualization and containerization of the RAN. An O-RAN site along with edge computing applications enables a plethora of next generation mobile and private 5G wireless network use cases — in manufacturing, warehousing, smart cities, healthcare, agriculture, and more. O-RAN is getting support from government organizations, Communication Service Providers (CSPs), telecom vendors, and academia.
Amongst the O-RAN components, Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) is most critical for sup- porting and managing a multi-vendor RAN environment. With the right SMO, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) and private network operators can choose the best-of-breed network function (O-RU, O-CU, O-DU, and NearRT RIC) providers, creating a technically superior solution while simultaneously reducing costs. In this paper, we assert that selecting an open, vendor neutral SMO offers many advantages, including up to 42% CAPEX reduction.
