By Mark Charman, vice president, MEA, Mavenir
The promise and delivery of 5G have unleashed a digital transformation, making it imperative for mobile network operators (MNOs) to reassess processes and workflows. MNOs’ workloads must be adapted to include different ways of network management and aligned to industry standards of business process frameworks. When cost and time-to-market for infrastructure deployments are reduced, markets unlock, and new business models emerge. By using open, non-proprietary software and systems, innovation and competition are fostered, not stifled.
An end-to-end, cloud-native, open network isn’t just challenging traditional methods and infrastructure vendors; it’s creating a reset moment for the mobile industry and a disruption in the 5G movement currently stalled by incumbent technology. With an Open RAN-led, cloud-native approach, the heady excitement of the earliest days of this industry — when anything seemed possible — can be recaptured, and businesses and consumers alike can unlock the value of 5G.
Open RAN technology allows hardware to be disaggregated from the software, providing a more open, interfaced vendor ecosystem that ultimately gives more flexibility to operators.
Operator support for Open RAN is growing. Research from Dell’Oro Group, a leading analyst and software-based networking technology provider, indicates that Open RAN revenues could account for approximately 15% of the overall 2G-5G RAN market by 2026. It also predicts that by 2025, Open RAN will account for more than 10% of the overall RAN market.
As operators roll out 5G networks, Mavenir is ready with its fully containerized, Open RAN vRAN solution that can be deployed over the Google or AWS cloud. Operators can rapidly deploy new features into their network quickly, without waiting for new hardware. Open RAN products also make it easy for the CSPs to migrate easily from 4G to 5G with just a software update, and CSPs can customize their own software and put features of their choice in their network.
As the industry's only end-to-end cloud-native network software provider, Mavenir is delivering a new network economics by pioneering advanced technology, focusing on the vision of a single, software-based automated network that runs on any cloud. Across the MENA region, Mavenir brings the full end-to-end, multi-G (2G, 3G, 4G and 5G) software-driven portfolio of solutions to a broad customer base.
Earlier this year, Mavenir was recognized for “Best Telecom Service Innovation” for its innovation in the delivery of fully containerized, cloud-native IMS, as well as “Best Open RAN Technology” for its Virtualized Open RAN at the 5G Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Digital Symposium virtual awards.
