• Verizon has deployed Qualcomm’s RAN intelligent controller (RIC) in its commercial network 
• It is running Samsung’s AI-enabled Energy Saving Manager rApp on the RIC
• The move suggests that RIC technology is reaching a critical level of maturity 
• Verizon’s deployment announcement comes as rival AT&T also starts to make use of RIC and rApp technology in its network

Verizon has taken an important step towards making its mobile access network smarter, greener and automated with the deployment of a non real-time RAN intelligent controller (RIC) developed by Qualcomm and an AI-enabled energy management application from Samsung that runs on Qualcomm’s RIC. 

The move is the latest in Verizon’s transformation of its mobile network that began almost five years ago with the decision in 2020 to deploy Open RAN-enabled virtual radio access network (vRAN) technology from Samsung Networks. With Samsung’s gear widely deployed in its 4G and 5G networks, Verizon has now integrated the RIC element of Qualcomm’s Dragonwing RAN Automation Suite into its Samsung vRAN deployments and is running the South Korean vendor’s “AI-powered” Energy Saving Manager (AI-ESM) rApp on that RIC. 

Verizon noted in its announcement that this is “another way artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in Verizon’s network to drive operational efficiency.”  

The operator’s senior VP of network technology, strategy and planning, Adam Koeppe, said: “Verizon has been driving innovation in and adoption of O-RAN throughout the industry because we believe an open and standardised network drives more competition, more innovation and increased supplier diversity. Expanding on our industry-leading success with deploying O-RAN compliant radios and distributed units throughout our network, the introduction of the RAN intelligent controller will allow for greater flexibility and control over network operations.”

Verizon is keen to point out the multivendor nature of this deployment. “Historically, automation platforms have been developed and run by the same vendors, providing proprietary hardware and software in a closed ecosystem,” explained Verizon in its announcement. “However, with the evolution of the RAN intelligent controller, they are now being developed independently of specific vendors and deployed on virtualised, open platforms. Verizon can now efficiently manage intelligent solutions and applications like rApps utilising open interfaces and standardised protocols from standards bodies, such as 3GPP and the O-RAN Alliance, allowing for more flexible and scalable network deployment and management.” 

That flexibility means Verizon can use rApps from any third party as well as develop its own, but it has started with a Samsung application that deals with one of the toughest challenges facing telcos today – improving energy efficiency in their mobile access networks. 

According to Verizon, the AI-ESM enables it to “maximise network energy efficiency and facilitate a more sustainable approach without compromising network performance and user experience. It identifies various site environments, learns traffic patterns by location and time of day, and evaluates the extent of impact on network performance – helping to find the optimal threshold value. 

“This solution automatically switches off cell or transmission paths within a cell site during periods of low traffic (when traffic load is below threshold value) to conserve power, and turns them back on when data traffic increases again (when traffic load reaches threshold value). By applying this, Verizon was able to achieve an energy-savings gain of 15% on average, with a maximum of 35% per sector during low traffic periods in a variety of field tests,” it claimed.

Qualcomm’s RIC helps with this too, of course: Verizon noted that the wireless chip giant’s RAN Automation Suite DML (data management layer) provides rApps with “RAN AI services, including HNN (hybrid neural network) and DNN (deep neural network) technology, for AI-driven RAN management”.

The move comes just as Verizon’s rival, AT&T, makes progress with the deployment of third-party apps on a RIC platform. As part of its five-year, $14bn Open RAN rollout with Ericsson, AT&T is deploying the Swedish vendor’s Ericsson Intelligent Automation Platform (EIAP), which includes a non real-time RIC. Ericsson is developing a “directory” of rApps (including its own and those developed by others) that run on its RIC, and AT&T is to deploy rApps developed by Aira Technologies to achieve “operational and spectral efficiency,” AT&T’s senior VP for technology and network services, Yigal Elbaz, noted during a recent press briefing in London. 

And there are plenty of RIC and RAN app developers out there ready to take advantage when telcos make the move from tests and trials to deployments: Check out TelecomTV’s free-to-download Open RAN: Advances in the RAN Intelligent Controller report for a deeper dive into RIC developments and some of the vendor platforms being pitched to the telco community.

And in the runup to #MWC25 in Barcelona, multiple other companies have been touting their RIC wares. One is VVDN Technologies, based in Gurugram, India, which announced that it had deployed its RIC on Red Hat’s OpenShift cloud platform. 

NEC, meanwhile, has become one of the few vendors to unveil a near real-time RIC platform, the type of RIC that runs low-latency applications called xApps (most RIC platforms are of the non real-time variety). To show off the capabilities of its near real-time RIC, NEC has built a network for remotely controlling mobile robots in an indoor environment and demonstrated an xApp that achieved “high reliability in terms of acceptable latency”.

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV