TelecomTV TelecomTV
  • News
  • Videos
  • Channels
  • Events
  • Directory
  • Smart Studio
  • Surveys
  • Debates
  • Perspectives
  • DSP Leaders World Forum
  • DSP Leaders
  • Great Telco Debate
    • |
    • Follow
    • |
    • Subscribe
  • |
  • More
  • Webcasts
  • Surveys
  • Debates
  • Perspectives
  • Great Telco Debate
  • |
  • Follow TelecomTV
  • |
    • Subscribe
    • |
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Follow TelecomTV
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Sign In Register Subscribe
    • Subscribe
    • Sign In
    • Register
  • Search

5G

5G

Five billion dollars by 2020 for NFV/SDN in the Cloud RAN

Ian Scales
By Ian Scales

Jul 24, 2014

via Flickr © osde8info (CC BY-SA 2.0)

via Flickr © osde8info (CC BY-SA 2.0)

There’s a bullish report on the prospects for NFV and SDN in the mobile RAN which projects a sizeable US$5 billion market for infrastructure by 2020.

Market Research Reports has produced The Wireless Network Infrastructure Bible: 2014 – 2020 - Macrocell RAN, Small Cells, RRH, DAS, Cloud RAN, Carrier WiFi, Mobile Core & Backhaul, and in it sees an impressive future for all things NFV and SDN with the so-called ‘Cloud RAN’ concept. This is where signal encoding/decoding and other RAN (radio access network) functions are moved about in software, perhaps onto a local backhaul node or even whisked back across the network into a data centre. All with an eye to optimising performance, resilience and, importantly, cost. 

The cloud RAN concept has been around for a while and some vendors claim to have already functionally implemented particular aspects, but it’s also true to say that there is a degree of scepticism abroad as to just how quickly it might show up in numbers out on the RAN. For operators it’s a crucial area and they’re rightly cautious around issues of physical security and resilience and even field engineer training. It could all go horribly wrong.

Which is why the $5 billion figure seems quite bold. The researchers say it all stacks up because the rewards are just that great. By getting rid of expensive proprietary hardware NFV and SDN working together offer a good chance to slash both CapEx and OpEx, due to reduction in physical space, power, and skilled labour.

It claims the investments will mostly be on cloud RAN (C-RAN) deployments, based around the idea of replacing traditional base station nodes with a centralized baseband processing pool serving a number of distributed radio access nodes.

Related Topics
  • 4G LTE,
  • 5G,
  • Access Evolution,
  • Analysis & Opinion,
  • Cloud,
  • Digital Platforms & Services,
  • Mobile,
  • News,
  • NFV,
  • SDN,
  • Transformation

More Like This

5G

Enea's CEO on the potential of 5G data

Mar 5, 2021

Digital Platforms & Services

DISH selects Amdocs’ cloud-native billing platform to support 5G services

Mar 5, 2021

Open Networking

DZS reinvents itself with RIFT acquisition

Mar 5, 2021

5G

What’s up with… TIP, SFR, ETSI MEC

Mar 4, 2021

5G

ZTE and China Telecom jointly launch Sichuan's first "5G + VR" system

Mar 4, 2021

Email Newsletters

Stay up to date with the latest industry developments: sign up to receive TelecomTV's top news and videos plus exclusive subscriber-only content direct to your inbox – including our daily news briefing and weekly wrap.

Subscribe

Top Picks

Highlights of our content from across TelecomTV today

18:24

How Zoom evolved in the pandemic era

26:24

Red Hat and HPE discuss how to support open multi-vendor 5G network slices

14:28

How RADCOM is helping Rakuten Mobile run its innovative 5G network

8:33

Monetizing innovative telco edge services

  • TelecomTV
  • Decisive Media

TelecomTV is produced by the team at Decisive Media

Menu
  • News
  • Videos
  • Channels
  • Directory
  • Smart Studio
 
  • Surveys
  • Debates
  • Perspectives
  • Events
  • About Us
Our Brands
  • TelecomTV Tracker
  • TelecomTV Perspectives
  • DSP Leaders
  • DSP Leaders World Forum
  • The Great Telco Debate
Get In Touch
[email protected]
+44 (0) 207 448 1070

Request a Media Pack

Follow
  • © Decisive Media Limited 2021. All rights reserved. All brands and products are the trademarks of their respective holder(s).
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Legal Notices