Embracing Open Ecosystem

Dr. Chih-Lin I
CMCC Chief Scientist, Wireless Technologies, CMRI
Technical Steering Committee Co-chair, O-RAN Alliance

5G Transformation with Open Source, ONF Spotlight

Sep. 9th, 2020
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Global 5G Landscape
Commercial launches by 81, investment by 386 carriers (deployment and verification)

Europe: 5G commercialized by 34 carriers in 17 countries China: World's largest commercial 5G networks, 480k+ sites
• Sunrise in Switzerland: 300+ towns (China Mobile: 250k); 600k+ sites by end of 2020 in 340+ major
• BT/EE in the UK: 16 cities, involving 1,500+ sites cities; largest user base at 130+ million sub (Aug 31)
• Vodafone: 58 cities in 7 countries, roaming available

South Korea: World's first 5G network in 2019,

having 5+ million users
Japan: 5G launched in March 2020

Australia: 5G launched by Optus and Telstra in Q2

2019

America: 9 carriers
U.S.: 5G launched by top 4 carriers
based on 3GPP Release 15
Africa: 3 carriers
South Africa: 5G launched by Rain in Middle East: commercial 5G launched by 13 carriers in
October 2019 in Johannesburg, Durban, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain
Pretoria, and other major cities
Source: GSA report, June 2020
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China’s 5G Rollout since June 2019

Build the largest 5G commercial network in the world

480k+ base stations were deployed by

the end of Aug

5G users had surpassed 130+ million by the

end of Aug

197+ models of 5G smartphones had obtained

certifications by the end of Aug

Number of 5g base 400+ 5G application trials had been completed,

stations in each province
including industrial internet, transportation, and
20000+
10000-20000 healthcare, etc.
5000-10000
1000-5000
0-1000
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Data source: ICT Institute
5G Standardization: Basic, Enhanced, Extended

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Rel-15 NSA Rel-15 NSA Rel-15 SA Rel-15 SA Rel-17 package

(option-3) (option-3) (option-2) (option-2) approval Rel-17 SI/WI Phase
Rel-15 late Rel-15 late
freeze ASN.1 freeze ASN.1
drop freeze drop ASN.1 Rel-17 Rel-17 stage-
RAN1 3 freeze
freeze RAN2/3/4(co
Rel-16 SI Rel-16 SI/WI phase Rel-17 Rel-17 stage- re) Rel-17 ASN.1
RAN1 3 freeze
Rel-16 freeze RAN2/3/4
freeze
Rel-17 ASN.1

R15 R16 R17

• key tech. and architecture latency:1ms • Performance Optimization Latency: 0.5~1ms • Enhanced intelligence 1M connection/km2
• Basic design Reliability 99.999% • Enhanced To B support Reliability 99.9999% • Service optimization Sub-meter positioning
• To B and To C 500km/h high mobility • N/W intelligence Meter-level posiiton • N/W optimization 1000km/h mobility

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5G: ICT Convergence ICDT Convergence

ICT Convergence
Green & Soft
Big Data
Cloud
4G 5G AI/ML 6G
SDN & NFV Smart
Data Driven
Soft MEC
Open & Smart
X86 ICDT Convergence

C-RAN NFV Open5G WAIA O-RAN

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RAN Transformation: a Long Journey
C-RAN baseband pool R&D C-RAN field trials 5G smart RAN
1, Large-scale field trials in over 10 cities 1, C-RAN Alliance launched & CU-DU
1, Design, development and test on front-
2, PoC field demonstration on virtualized architecture accepted by 3GPP
end accelerator
C-RAN 2, WAIA: Proposal of RDA concept for
2, First soft 4G BS PoC based on COTS
3, Evaluation of NGFI & design of CU/DU the first time with AI-based wireless big
platform
architecture, anchor CU for reliability data architecture
3, 1st field trial in commercial networks
4. Established IEEE 1914 WG 3, In-hours PoC development on cloud-
4, Adding RAN in ETSI NFV ISG WP
5. ITU-T 5G FG based CU-DU with demonstration with
commercial RRU&UE
2012-2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
C-RAN PoC development 5G C-RAN O-RAN
1, OTA test with commercial EPC , RRU 1, Continuous refinement on design of
CU-DU architecture and the interface 1, Open & Smart
and UE
2, In-house PoC development of gNB 2, RIC
2, Proposal of NGFI (xHaul) concept
with CU-DU, MANO and cloud platform 3, Arch & Interface
3, Proposal of CU-DU architecture
3, Carrier-grade cloud platform proposal 4, Open source
5, ……
CU_DU VM accepted by Openstack
RT-Linux+ Front-
CN Driver PCIe CPRI SmarTile
End

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O-RAN: Open & Smart RAN
Vision of O-RAN
NMS MANO
5G CN

5G CU
Big Data Open Interface &
Analytics & AI MEC
Architecture

CU-C CU-U

E2 E1 Intelligence & Intelligent • Big Data-based RRM

Standardization Management • Intelligent computing-
based apps
RAN NFVI
• E2, E3 Interface Standardization
NGFI-II CU • Open Interface of protocol stack
Open Source & • Open Capability of Edge Computing
Virtualization
5G DU
DU • Open Interface (NGFI-I/NGFI-II)
NGFI-I

AAU/RU whitebox •Open-source Software,

&Reference design AAU/RU white-box open reference design

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 O-RAN Reference Arch & TSC: 9 WGs, 3 FGs,1 OSC

WG1: Use cases & Overall architecture AT&T & CMCC

Design Inventory Policy Configuratio RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC)

CMCC, AT&T n non-RT Standards Dev.
Orchestration & Automation (e.g. ONAP): MANO, NMS
& E///, Intel Focus Group
A1
WG2: RIC(non-RT)
& A1 Interface DT, CMCC &
RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) near-RT
Applications
E Layer
Radio QoS Interferenc
Nokia, Samsung
Orange, DOCOMO & E/// 3rd party 2 Mobility Trained
APP
Connection
Mgmt
Mgm e
Model WG3: RIC(near-RT)
WG5: open F1/
Mgmt t. Mgmt
& E2 Interface
Test & Integration
Radio-Network Information
W1/E1/X1/Xn inf. Base Focus Group
E2 :btw RIC near-RT and CU/DU CMCC & AT&T
CU-CP CU-UP
Multi-RAT RRC E1 SDAP WG9: Open X-haul
CMCC, AT&T CU Protocol Stack PDCP- PDCP-
transport
Intel & Radisys C U
WG8: Stack DOCOMO, Verizon Open Source
reference design NFVI Platform: Virtualization layer and COTS platform F1 & Nokia, Cisco Community
WG4: Open FH
AT&T, ORANGE, Open Source
Interface
Lenovo & Ciena DU: RLC/MAC/PHY-high Focus Group
WG6: Open Front Haul CMCC, AT&T,
Cloudification & QCM & Baicells
RU: PHY-low/RF
MANO Enhance
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WG7: White-Box
Open Reference Design: 5G Ecosystem Transformation

• Enable players with diverse domain expertise to participate

• Lower the technical entry barrier for new entrants
• Create source diversity for healthier ecosystem

Traditional Ecosystem Ecosystem based on ORD

Horizontal Hardware Software
Decoupling Provider Provider
System
Open Ref.Vertical
Design
CU
Provider
DU … RU
Vendor Decoupling
Provider Provider

System Integrator

Private R&D Open Ref. Design

System System
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CMCC Whitebox Field Trials: 4G in 2019, 5G in 2020
Goal 4G WB field trial (2019)
 Suzhou field trial：focusing on stability verification of cloud
 Verify the functional integrity, stability and reliability of
platform covering an area of 1500 square meters about 200
5g cloud pico station both in public network and the
users. This system worked without stability problem during
vertical industry,.
at least 30 days.
 Evaluation of integrated deployment cost (CAPEX/OPEX)
 Verify system reliability (general platform with HA/
dedicated platform)
User tidal migration
 Extension for future intelligent RAN scenario research
Cell_1

5G WB field trial participating provinces

Cell_2
 B, C, F, G, J (LTE&NR), S, Z Cell_3

2019.Q3 2019.Q4 2020.Q1 2020.Q2 2020.Q3 2020.Q4 2021-future

LTE pico station lab NR pico station lab NR pico station intelligent RIC
test & field trial test field trial extension
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 Roadmap of O-RAN Whitebox
• Architecture selection, function
decomposition and requirements for BS WB
• POC 1st version prototype IN MWC Europe
• 1st WB RU POC demo at MWC Europe
• Release of 1st version of deployment • Key component selection and building reference design
scenarios and use case document • Draft 4 specifications of the reference design of IPC whitebox
• WB reference architecture
• POC 2nd version prototype IN MWC
Shanghai
• Release Schematic level reference
design for RU and Accelerator for IPC
2019 Q3

2019 Q1 2019 Q2 2019 Q4 2020 Q1

RU characters: Accelerator characters：
•Operating band: 2.6GHz, 2.6GHz+2.3GHz •Networking : NSA/SA
•Channel BW: 100MHz •Capacity : 3cell* 4T4R 100Mhz NR+ 5cell*4T4R 20MHz LTE
•Port Num: 2T2R, 4T4R+2T2R(LTE) •Fronthaul : CPRI/eCPRI

Indoor Picocell (FR1) deployment Outdoor Macrocell(FR1) Outdoor Picocell (FR2)

scenario: • Develop HW architecture and requirement specifications • Develop one HW architecture and requirement spec and reference design
• Release 4 specs • Develop HW reference design Specs: one for FR1 specifications

• O-RAN.WG7.DSC.0-v02.00 Indoor Picocell (FR1) deployment scenario:

• O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HAR.0-v01.00
• O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt7-2.0-v01.00
• O-RAN.WG7.IPC-HRD-Opt7-8.0-v01.00
• Release spec for HRD v1.0 for option 6
IPC reference design and hardware
• Release spec for HRD v2.0 for option 8
• Release spec for HRD v2.0 for option 7-2 using ASIC
•

2020 Q2 2020 Q3 2020 Q4 2021 Q1 2021 Q2 2021 Q3

Outdoor Microcell(FR1) Outdoor Microcell(FR1)
• Develop HW architecture and requirement specifications • Develop HW architecture and requirement specification V2
• Develop HW reference design Specs: one for FR1
11 • Develop HW reference design Specs: V2 one for FR1 11
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 • … under Linux Foundation (LF)
O-RAN Open Source Community • … sponsored by O-RAN Alliance to develop open source software to realize O-RAN components and systems
• The O-RAN SC Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) will be responsible for all technical oversight of the open source
project
www.o-ran-sc.org

1 April, 2018, preminlinary discussion with LF

1 Oct, 2018, Open Source Focus Group formed

1 April 2, 2019, O-RAN SC officially set up

1 May, 2019, project kick-off, seed code uploaded

Nov. 30, 2019, Amber Release 4 © 2018 AT& T IntellectualProperty.Allrights reserved.AT& T,G lobe logo,M obilizing Your W orld and DIRECTV are registered tradem arks and service m arks of AT& T

• 1M+ lines of codes from

IntellectualProperty and/or AT& T affiliated com panies.Allother m arks are the property of their respective ow ners.

1
• 60+ committers via
• 10+ companies
Innovative dual licensing policy
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O-RAN OSC Projects at a Glance
Project Key PTL Description
open source sample xAPPs and platform applications for integration, testing, and
RICAPP Matti Hiltunen (AT&T)
demonstrations.
RIC Thoralf Czichy (Nokia) Initial RIC Platform to support xAPPs with limited support for O1, A1, and E2 interfaces.

OCU Yingying Wang (CMCC) software deliverable for O-CU.

ODU (High and Sachin Srivastava (Radisys) &

Focus on initial L1/2 functional blocks
Low) Zhimin Yuan (Intel)
OAM Martin Skorupski (Highstreet) O1-related sysdev; initial dashboard for monitoring and demonstration of contributions.
SIM Alex Stancu (Highstreet) Initial simulators used for testing O-RAN interfaces.
INF XiaohuaZhang (Windriver) Initial building blocks for infrastructure to run O-RAN NF components.

To test the requirements documented in each release. This will focus on end to end test
INT Lusheng Ji (AT&T)
and use case testing.

DOC Weichen Ni (CMCC) Documentation on contributions and O-RAN SC contents.

Non-realtime RIC focus on feature functionality of A1-interface (consumer and provider),

NONRTRIC John Keeney (Ericsson)
and closed-loop use cases.
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Two Releases in 2020

• Bronze release (June 21, 2020):

• >3M lines of code contributed by >80 contributors from >15 companies
• Key features/highlights
• Two E2E use cases: traffic steering and health check
• O-DU-LOW: OFH interface and FAPI interface implementation
• O-DU-HIGH: E2 initiation and setup; subset of E2 messages to support traffic steering
• O-CU: open source CU-U plane implementation with F1-U support in form of binary code
• nRT RIC: (from pre-spec. to be) compliant with E2 spec. v1.0, E2 setup/failure, xAPP
onboarding etc.
• xAPP: various xAPPs for traffic steering, management, KPI monitoring etc.
• NRT RIC: A1 flow implementation and test; policy mangement with GUI
• OAM: health check on O1 flow
• INF: Container-based O-Cloud design with real-time support & support of ARM-based
realtime Kubernetes cluster
• SIM: enhancement implemented, e.g. E2 ingest data pipeline from trace file;
• INT: Partial CI/CD pipeline, Deployment artifact automation, Open Test Framework (OTF)
integrated

• Cherry Release (Dec. 2021) kicked off 14

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RIC (Intelligence) Is One of the Keys to Vertical Industry

Service Management & Orchestration Non-RT RAN Intelligent Controller

The primary goal of the Non-RT RIC is
Non-Real Time RIC to support non-real-time radio resource
>= 1 second management, policy optimization in
Non-RT Control loop
O2 O1 A1 RAN and providing guidance,
O-RAN Network Functions parameters, policies and AI/ML models
to support the operation of near-RT RIC
Near-Real Time RIC functions in the RAN.
>= 10 ms < 1 second
Non-RT Control loop
E2 Near-RT RAN Intelligent Controller
O-gNB A logical function described by the O-
E2 < 10 ms
RAN Alliance, targeted for near real-
RT Control loop time control and optimization of E2
O-eNB nodes functions and resources, by fine-
grained data collection and actions over
the E2 interface.
O-Cloud
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 Non-RT RIC OSC Project and Reference Design
 OSC Non-RT RIC Project Rel. A (Nov. 2019)
 Initial A1 Adapter/Controller
 Implements a subset of the A1 Policy LCM functions based on a
“pre-spec” version of A1 protocol
UI NMS GIS ...

 Prototype RESTCONF-based NBI for A1 mediation interface to Non-RT RIC

allow messages to be sent up/down A1 interface AI Model Repository Online AI Model Execute Non-RT RIC Core and Management

Inference UI CMD NMS Interaction GIS Interaction ...

 OSC Non-RT RIC Project Rel. B (June 2020) FTP/SFTP
Task
Execute&Report
Task
Execute&Report
TF/Caffé/Spark MLib/... AI Training data set Workflow Management

 Implement O-RAN WG2 A1 spec (Release 1.x) Management

AI Model Repository
Workflow Generate
Workflow Context


Management
Implement A1 policy management service Online AI Model
AI Task Generate PM Job Generate A1 Policy Admin

Management PM Job Context A1 Policy Design

 Demonstrate simple end-to-end usecase (NONRTRIC, OAM Training Data Set
Data Pre-processing Task TASK Task
Offline AI Model Train Offlin AI Model
Management
AI Task Maintenance
VES&DMaaP A/D/M A1 Policy Context
Model Training
functions, near-RTRIC, xNF, …. ) Data Modeling, Data Statistics
Execute&Re
port
Execute&Re
port Feature Engineeing A1 Policy Management Create/Remove Topic
Training Data Data
 Prototype initial support for observability of policy-affected Spark Platform (HIVE/IMPALA)
Preparation Retrieving
TF/Caffé/Spark MLib/... A1 Policy Repository A1 Data Processing Engine

indicators for policy assessment

Topic: Feed:
 Demonstrate Prototype “R-APP” (SMO / Non-RealTime-RIC Message Router O-RAN
Data Router O-RAN
DMaaP

application-level function)
 Demonstrate prototype deployment of ML model in near-RT PNDA(Spark)
DCAE VF-C
PM Mapper Homels A1 Adaptor O1 Adaptor
RIC O-RAN extension
NFVO
EM Adaptor
VES Collector HV-VES Collector DataFile Collector
REST + JSON TLS/TCP,GPB SFTP/FTP A1 Adaptor
REST + JSON TLS/TCP + GPB SFTP/FTP

Container

O1 Interface
xNF
A1 Interface

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Near-RT RIC OSC Project
 OSC Near-RT RIC Project Rel. A
 RIC Platform Project
• Application/microservices framework to host
multiple xApps
• A message bus to publish and subscribe messages
inside near-RT RIC
• A1 mediator to relay basic policies from Non-RT
RIC to near-RT RIC
• E2 Termination agent to interface with O-CU
• R-NIB DBaaS to store RAN state information
• E2 manager to transact E2 data into the R-NIB
 RIC APP Project
• xApps: Access Control, Measurement Campaign,
KPI monitor

 OSC Near-RT RIC Project Rel. B

 Traffic steering use case
 E2/A1/O1 Alignment
 Platform hardening: performance improvement, tracing support, health check & recovery
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Call for Industry Collaboration

OSC Cherry Release being developed

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Open Testing and Integration (OTIC) & 1st Global Plugfest (Nov. 2019)

Asia OTIC Lab North America OTIC Lab

• Asia OTIC in Beijing has been launched (9 Nov. 2019，by

China Mobile, China Telecom & China Unicom） • Dec 2019, O-RAN OSC Amber Release, over 3 sites coordinated by
- achieve decoupling tiered commercial procurement capability AT&T
• Asia OTICs in Japan & India is in planning • Sep 2020 for O-RAN open interface specs w/ O-RAN OSC Bronze
Release & real equipment & simulators.
European OTIC Lab
• Supported by DT, Orange, Telefonica and TIM (and open for others…)
• Two physical locations currently:
• Berlin in Germany (hosted by DT in partnership with Orange) & Torino in Italy (hosted by TIM)
• Collaboration with TIP based on recent O-RAN/TIP LA (initially joint lab in Berlin)
• On Open FH interface (O-RU/O-DU) and ONAP - O-RAN integration & testing (O1)
• Virtualized RAN solutions testing and integration
• Non-RT and Near-RT RIC co-development and testing (E2, A1)
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 Two Years of Great Momentum: 220 Members
O-RAN WP

• 6 PoC in MWC
Shanghai
• O-RAN Board meeting • Virtual F2F
Launch of O-RAN Open
• O-RAN Industry Forum • Virtual exhibition
Source Community (with LF) • MVP
• Bronze Release.
2018.09 2019.04 2019.06 • Cherry Rel.

2018.10, official launch 2019.02 2019.05 2019.12 2020.02 2020.06 2020.9 2020.12
2018.06: O-RAN of O-RAN • White-Box Small BS Workshop • 7 new spec.
founding meeting • Open reference design • 17 new spec
• 22 Demos for
• 2nd Plugfest
MWCB
• 1st O-RAN Spec.: Open
• Establishment of OTIC
FH interface
• Amber Release
• O-RAN MWC (7 PoC) • 1st Plugfest
• O-RAN seminar in MWC

• 53 Published specification since Feb. 2019

• 2 Open Source software release
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• 1 Global Plugfest event
• 31 Demos in O-RAN virtual exhibition (https://www.virtualexhibition.o-ran.org/)
The Harbinger of Global Ecosystem Transformation

• Vodafone: to purchase >100,000 China Unicom: MoU on

OpenRAN BSs in 14 countries; OpenRAN 5G NR with TIP;
• Deutsche Telekom: Plan on Evenstar NRT-RIC test with solution
RRU with Mavenir, Parallel wireless; provided by ONF.
• Turkcell: plan to deploy OpenRAN/vRAN.

Rakuten: 4G O-RAN
network has been deployed ;
• AT&T: nRT-RIC/FH test 5G Open RAN solution test
and trial; with TPG in Singapore.
• DISH network: plan to
deploy 5G O-RAN network NTT DOCOMO: 5G network
starting from scratch; with O-RAN FH and X2
• Verizon: O-RAN FH interfaces commercialized
interface lab test w/ 5G in Sep 2019.
equipment.

• Etisalat: Open RAN test with Parallel

Wireless in the Middle East, Africa, Aisa.

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 Green & Soft
Open & Smart
ICDT Deep Convergence!

SDO, Open Source, Native AI

A Perfect Storm!

Thank You!
icl@chinamobile.com
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