OPEN RAN ECOSYSTEM LETS CSPS OPTIMIZE INVESTMENTS

Ahead of their Dubai Summit, Telecom Review sat down with Mavenir’s Virtyt Koshi, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EMEA. In the interview transcribed below, Koshi describes the formation of the Mavenir’s Open RAN Partner Ecosystem, how it will pave the way to 5G deployment, and the economic transformation that is critical to the survival of mobile operators. For more information on the ecosystem, visit Mavenir’s Open RAN Partner web page.

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Telecom Review: Mavenir has formed an Open RAN Partner Ecosystem. Why did you establish such an ecosystem and where does its importance lie?

Koshi: Mavenir has teamed up with a number of known telecom vendors to launch the Open RAN Partner Ecosystem providing greater flexibility for Operators to optimize the investments. We believe open interfaces in RAN will enable a variety of architectures and deployment scenarios, to meet ever-increasing data demand. As one of the founders of O-RAN concept, Mavenir’s role is end-to-end systems integrator simplifying the engagement for operators who want to deploy a flexible cloud-based Open RAN solution.

Telecom Review: How will this ecosystem pave the way to 5G deployment?

Koshi: Operators need to demonstrate profitable business growth, speed of launching new products, agility, and optimal network design. Therefore, solutions can only be software-based, running on commodity hardware in cloud computing data centers and at the cell edge. O-RAN opens door to innovation and lower cost of ownership in contrast to hardware-centric RAN solutions designed for 2G/3G and voice-centric architectures. This approach is being favored by operators who want to embrace Open RAN as it allows the deployment of open market (white box) remote radio units (RRUs) to interwork with the virtualized cloud baseband unit (vBBU) over ethernet fronthaul (FH).

Telecom Review: Mavenir was recently recognized for Virtualized RAN (vRAN) – How will vEPC (Virtual Evolved Packet Core) and vRAN change network dynamics for operators?

Koshi: Together, Virtualized RAN (vRAN) and vEPC provide unparalleled flexibility for operators to deploy network intelligence more effectively. The first step to enabling new business models is Control and User Plane Separation (CUPS) allowing the different functions to scale independently. This gives operators more flexible deployment options and better tools for coping with increasing volume and dynamic variations of network traffic. The second step is vEPC functionality at different network nodes, cell edge, hubs, local and regional data centers, ensuring service excellence and customer experience for a variety of applications and Operator offerings.

Telecom Review: Mavenir offers a wide range of revenue generation solutions. How important is it for telcos to generate new revenue streams especially that emerging technologies have changed the ICT scene?

Koshi: We believe it is critical to help operators transform network economics through cost savings and innovative revenue-generating solutions such as Multi-ID virtual lines, mobile-first unified communications, RCS Business Messaging (RBM) capabilities, etc.

Telecom Review: Mavenir recently announced its RCS Business Messaging solution, how is this benefiting operators?

Koshi: Mavenir’s RCS Business Messaging solution provides a seamless evolution path for operators to offer enterprises full multimedia messaging capabilities to deliver A2P and P2A communications to their consumers over a clean and trusted channel with global reach.

Contrary to what other RCS cloud-based solutions do, Mavenir’s RCS Business Messaging solution allows the operator to remain in control of the brand relationship and guarantees the messages between the brands and the consumers are kept confidential, including the metadata to allow them to position RCS as a trusted, clean channel.

Telecom Review: How does Mavenir help operators to transform network economics?

Koshi: We view everything from the radio to the core as virtualized software running on generally available, commodity off the shelf (COTS) hardware. We’re challenging the business models which are too old for the web-scale needs and introducing new ideas and flexibility that add value to operators’ bottom line performance so they can succeed in the all-connected world.