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Set micro network news, recently, the open wireless access network (ORAN) field of news, Lotte, Dish and other operators open 5G deployment has made new progress, and in MWC2022, there are dozens of manufacturers to show ORAN product solutions, set off the "popularity" of open 5G networks, behind these manufacturers, is active Intel, AMD and other chip giants.
For Intel in particular, since then-CEO Brian Krzanich announced in 2016 that "we are now the leader in 5G," the company's ambitions to expand the telecommunications carrier market have been repeatedly frustrated.
The ideal is beautiful, the reality is very bone
In the wireless access network (RAN) market, what has been accustomed to for many years is the "black box" product model, that is, the equipment manufacturer delivers a closed and complete system to the operator, and the internal software and hardware are integrated by the equipment manufacturer. Under such a model, the communication equipment market has long been "clearly distinguished" from the IT market, and in the case of a stable pattern of several major equipment vendors, chip manufacturers such as Intel are also satisfied with the position of secondary suppliers.
However, with the advent of the 5G era, higher frequency bands bring more intensive base station cloth station demand and higher single station construction costs, and the huge investment in 4G networks has not been fully recovered, resulting in operators urgently need to reduce the cost of wireless access network construction, xRAN, CRAN and other new business concepts have also come into being, generally focusing on the wireless network with the highest proportion of investment in the access network link, trying to achieve "decoupling" between base station equipment through the standardization of interfaces and protocols, so that more manufacturers can be based on their own endowments. Providing corresponding subsystem "white box" products to reduce operator cost pressure through fuller competition, ORAN is the integrator of these concept evolutions.
Obviously, such a decoupling will impact the traditional business model of the communication equipment market, just as after IBM's standard control of the PC machine was broken, Intel, Microsoft and other core software and hardware suppliers rose to the top of the value chain, will the communication equipment market change, will it also bring a new "blue ocean" to IT manufacturers?
It is inspired by this vision that in 2016, Intel CEO Kozanich publicly expressed his eager expectations for the operator's business, "We believe that 5G will be a major shift, and we believe it will allow us to better cooperate with device vendors to build base stations with our network chips." ”
However, despite the wonderful vision, the business model of the access network market has not changed as quickly as people expected, and only two years later, in 2018, on the eve of the global 5G large-scale commercial use, Kozaiqi left the company.
Today, there are still very few ORAN networks to achieve large-scale commercial use, as a benchmark of Rakuten open 4G network, its base station antenna, radio frequency and other core equipment, still from the traditional giant Nokia, by its open CPRI interface, for Rakuten to integrate other manufacturers' baseband processing equipment. As for the open 5G network in line with the ORAN concept, there are still no operators to achieve commercial use, and Dish Network, the US operator that originally planned to launch open 5G last year, has postponed this plan until June this year, admitting that "we did not expect that we would have to do so much in terms of technology."
(According to previous plans, Dish expects to achieve 5G network coverage of 70% of the U.S. population by 2023))
Analysts from a world-renowned analytical institution analyzed the reasons for this situation to Jiwei Network:
First of all, from a technical point of view, the standardization of interfaces and protocols still needs to be promoted, and the O-RAN industry alliance and the OpenRAN project promoted by TIP have not yet been effectively integrated, let alone entered the 3GPP agenda and become a global industry standard, in addition, different manufacturers of equipment, even if there are compatible standardized interfaces, but the complexity of the access network determines that the debugging and stable operation of the software and hardware system is still a huge test. Whether it is operators or new "white box" equipment vendors, they lack the know-how and manpower reserves of system integration, failure analysis, debugging operation and maintenance, so that whether it is The previous Lotte or now Dish, they have found themselves having to assume the responsibility of system integration of traditional equipment vendors, Dish founder Charlie Ergen admitted, "This is not the role we originally envisioned." But for all suppliers, someone has to act as an intermediary between them, to be the glue that binds them together. ”
Secondly, from the business point of view, as mentioned above, to date, there is no 5G network in line with the ORAN concept to achieve commercial use, the lack of benchmarking cases or business best practices, making it difficult for external manufacturers and capital to establish a deterministic business model, restricting the willingness to invest in this field, at the same time, many telecom operators who have invested in 5G network construction have often signed contracts with several traditional equipment vendors for many years, and have formed a considerable scale of stock assets, in such a "brownfield" Grafting on the ORAN system will bring a series of unknown risks.
It is precisely because of such restrictions that despite the positive attitude of operators, the equipment market is still firmly controlled by traditional giants, and Mavenir and other rookies who try to break the game with ORAN Dongfeng have a negligible proportion of the market for related software and hardware products.
To some extent, this status quo can be compared to the boom in data center Arm chips in recent years, the defects of the technology ecology, and the thinness of the business model, so that although the vision is recognized, it cannot effectively change the monopoly market pattern of X86 architecture products.
A "visible hand"
From the current situation of bone sense to ORAN's bright vision, if you follow the general business logic, I am afraid that you still need to sneak on the gentle market maturity curve for a long time, looking forward to the future, the evolution of the access network- core network architecture brought about by the real-time processing demand of edge computing power, as well as the naturalization of technology and market demand in the 5G millimeter wave and even 6G era, may collide with the opportunity for explosive growth of the ORAN market.
But it is worth noting that beyond the "invisible hand" of the market, human intervention is bringing new variables to ORAN.
With the strong lobbying pressure of the United States, many operators in Western countries have to start to explicitly or implicitly exclude the two major Chinese equipment manufacturers, turning to Nokia, Ericsson and other manufacturers to purchase "trusted" 5G equipment, but this market gap "opened up" by the United States is obviously not happy to see traditional European manufacturers sitting on their success.
Under such circumstances, ORAN, to a certain extent, is alienating from the business vision of global open source and openness to a banner of "group" competition for American manufacturers.
Rakuten, japan, which has the most experience in ORAN network construction, in its demonstration of the Rakuten Mobile Platform (RMP) system architecture, intriguingly highlights the dominant position of U.S. manufacturers, and other manufacturers that have been admitted also have extremely obvious geographical selectivity.
Draw system integration know-how from Lotte, let Nokia and other European manufacturers provide complex subsystems such as radio frequency, and then fill different cloud network software and hardware technology stacks by American local enterprises, and finally form a complete set of 5G network "alternatives", in such a conspiracy, the most advantageous chip manufacturers in the United States will undoubtedly get greater dominance and discourse power.
In fact, Intel has not given up its interest in the 5G device market over the years.
As mentioned above, Intel's 5G grand plan in the era of Kozaiqi, with its resignation temporarily silent, its successor Bob Swan not only sold the mobile device baseband chip business as a whole to Apple, but also in the field of 5G base station equipment, in the same period, there was also a delay in delivering 10nm process processors to Nokia, resulting in The shipment of Nokia 5G devices was dragged down.
(Interestingly, Intel's chip problem, which accidentally made Marvell, gain nokia as a huge customer)
However, from another perspective, the setbacks of the Shreb era can also be seen as a throbbing of strategic adjustment, although the problems with Nokia at this stage at least indicate Intel's positive intentions in the carrier market. It is worth mentioning that at the same time as the sale of the baseband chip business, Intel also acquired The Switch Chip Developer Barefoot Networks, reflecting the obvious trade-off in the 5G personal terminal and base station business.
Kissinger, who succeeded Sribo, adjusted Intel's organizational structure in 2021 and established the Network and Edge Group, led by Barefoot founder Nick McKeown, reporting directly to Kissinger himself, which shows how much he values it.
In parallel with the national policy of "autonomous and controllable" 5G networks in the United States, Intel's investment in the field of 5G may soon enter a stage of harvesting returns.
At present, Intel, AMD and other American chip giants, with their strong technology accumulation on CPUFPGA network chips and skilled OEM/ODM ecological cultivation experience, are promoting the development of ORAN "white box" hardware manufacturers, becoming the latter's "technology empowerment" platform, driving manufacturers' willingness to invest.
With the open 5G network of Dish and Japanese operators put into commercial use later this year, 2022 will become the "first year of ORAN", and the participating manufacturers will gain knowledge in production scenarios and accelerate the iterative pace of technology and architecture. In this process, whether it is based on their own interests, or in order to cooperate with the official 5G "Yang Conspiracy" of the United States, it is decided that Intel, AMD and other manufacturers will play a more prominent role, and the business model and market pattern of access network equipment may accelerate changes as a result. (Proofreader/Rakukawa)