8 ms·

Nokia to add open interfaces to its telecom equipment

247 points by finphil 6y ago

gtirloni 6y ago
Relevant: https://www.o-ran.org https://www.o-ran.org
raxxorrax 6y ago
Some terms are like voodoo for me as I am not familiar with telcom infrastructure. I found this site helpful to explain the terms at least. https://mavenir.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-openran-o-ran-and-vran/ https://mavenir.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-open... Not yet sure what to make of it but it sounds pretty good. If we had open standards between components, maybe we could audit proprietary modules to a better degree.
- dfox 6y ago
  My reading is that it is not that much about open standards between components (which are supposed to be somewhat open and interoperable already), but about open and vendor-neutral OAM interfaces.
rcarmo 6y ago
This is interesting considering the direction standards/advisory bodies like TM Forum have been heading into. The telco industry was always big on standardisation, but paradoxically interop was a constant challenge when I was working in 3G rollouts...
- g_p 6y ago
  Indeed - standardisation is adopted as it helps drive more handset sales and stimulate consumer demand. But standardisation is eschewed even in 4G and 5G when it comes to the equipment deployment - everyone is trying to build their "moat" of proprietary features to make you want to only deploy their radios in a given area (or ideally the whole network). Automatic neighbour detection and cross-eNB resource block coordination are 2 that spring to mind which I think you lose in 4G if you don't go with a single-vendor approach. And good luck actually getting rival radio vendors to talk X2 to each other nicely...
dicknuckle 6y ago
5G is definitely changing the way cell networks are built although traditional towers are still a part of this. my understanding is that traditional towers will operate on spectrum that reaches out for miles like a traditional tower, while the smaller towers built on lampposts and street corners will be operating on higher bandwidth spectrum that doesn't reach as far, requiring more small towers in densely populated areas. open RANs are the key to making sure all the operators can use existing infra instead of overbuilding each other. sure we'll have a ton of small 5g towers in dense areas, but imagine how many towers would be installed if individual telecoms had to build their own networks.
- mycall 6y ago
  It really is becoming a public utility and should be treated as such by government and business. The original concept for "cellular division" for higher density bandwidth is why we call them cell towers in the first place.
  - frandroid 6y ago
    But how can we create billionaires like Carlos Slim and Naguib Sawiris in every country without cellphone companies?
- Nokinside 6y ago
  5G spectrum covers low-band and-mid band spectrum from 1G through 4G LTE frequencies. Then there is this new high-band. First 5G installations are deployed into new high-band. 5G installations in the countryside will be low band that is more efficient than 4G/LTE. You can have _less_ base stations than LTE, not more in the low-band. 5G NR is more efficient radio interface in all bandwidths.
  - apcragg 6y ago
    That is not true. T-Mobile has Release 15 5G deployed in the 600 MHz band right now -- I'm looking at being broadcast over-the-air on my spectrum analyzer here in the south eastern US.
kube-system 6y ago
What incentive do lower cost manufacturers have to cooperate with this?
- zymhan 6y ago
  It would allow them to spend less time designing an entire software ecosystem, for one. Sort of like OpenDaylight https://www.opendaylight.org https://www.opendaylight.org
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Given that wireless equipment vendors already have an existing system, I can’t imagine that the marginal cost of maintaining it outweighs the benefits of vendor lock-in. ... unless I'm missing something about the economics of the situation. Edit: I see now -- from another link in this section, it sounds like this may be beneficial for the growth of smaller niche players who have tiny market share.
- Someone 6y ago
  Unless this adds significant costs to the hardware, I would think lower cost manufacturers would embrace this, as it allows operators to say “let’s buy a few of those cheaper ones to see how they fare”, whereas nowadays, they would have to switch a significant part of their network over to hardware they may not fully trust. Interoperability, in general, is good for smaller or cheaper players. As a corollary, this announcement made me think Nokia must be a small player in this market.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  Operators are likely to demand this feature. Previously, they'd usually prefer a 'monoculture' so it's all or nothing for lower cost manufacturers at the time when an operator rolls out their network or a new generation of it, and an extreme barrier of entry for a new manufacturer. Cooperating could enable a lower cost manufacturer to sell hardware to operators that otherwise would not even consider them due to compatibility issues with their existing gear.
mikorym 6y ago
I've been following Nokia for the past two years and watched the two documentaries about them (they are similar; one has more Finnish). [1] [2] My conclusions about them are this: 1. They can become a major player in 5G for Europe. 2. The places in Finland where they operated did not become ghost towns as you may have thought. 3. They are still very competent. In fact, when their mobile business was bought out by Microsoft, it appears that they were a leader in car navigation systems. Not sure if MS considered that when doing the takeover and not sure whether they took it over. 4. They have always been a telecom infrastructure player and become more so after the 2010–2012 fiasco. They were working on Linux derived OSs for phones. I always thought they tanked due to their marriage to Symbian and ignorance towards Android. I am not sure anymore; I have become more old school and like people that write their own code. 5. The Finns seem to blame hubris for their downfall. I think even without hubris, you can't really compete against countries with a lot of people and low wages. 6. Finland remains an awesome country. Their engineers are probably better than Germans, but they are 1/10th in number. (Sorry, I like to take on the Germans in a challenge. Maybe it's because they are actually something to take on?) [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5654050/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5654050/ [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8717008/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8717008/
- pavlov 6y ago
  On point 3, the car navigation systems and map data were a separate division called Here. Microsoft wanted to buy it together with the mobile phones, but Nokia held out for a better price, and finally sold Here in 2015 to a consortium of Audi, Daimler and BMW for about $3B USD. On point 6, as a Finn working in USA, I would add that the stereotypical Finnish engineer in my mind is someone very capable who believes their job is finding reasons to say “no” to ideas. This is a paradigmatic cultural difference from America where most people feign enthusiasm loosely. IMHO one of the things that holds Finland back is the belief that pessimism wins out in the long run.
  - kazen44 6y ago
    an interesting anecdote on the pessimism aspect. As someone from another northern european country, "pessimism" seems to be a phenomenon that is very common in most western/northern european countries. People are critical about radical ideas (usually for good reason imo) and blind optimism makes you look like a fool.

247 points by finphil 6y ago

Relevant: https://www.o-ran.org https://www.o-ran.org

Some terms are like voodoo for me as I am not familiar with telcom infrastructure. I found this site helpful to explain the terms at least. https://mavenir.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-openran-o-ran-and-vran/ https://mavenir.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-open... Not yet sure what to make of it but it sounds pretty good. If we had open standards between components, maybe we could audit proprietary modules to a better degree.

dfox 6y ago
My reading is that it is not that much about open standards between components (which are supposed to be somewhat open and interoperable already), but about open and vendor-neutral OAM interfaces.

rcarmo 6y ago

This is interesting considering the direction standards/advisory bodies like TM Forum have been heading into. The telco industry was always big on standardisation, but paradoxically interop was a constant challenge when I was working in 3G rollouts...

g_p 6y ago
Indeed - standardisation is adopted as it helps drive more handset sales and stimulate consumer demand. But standardisation is eschewed even in 4G and 5G when it comes to the equipment deployment - everyone is trying to build their "moat" of proprietary features to make you want to only deploy their radios in a given area (or ideally the whole network). Automatic neighbour detection and cross-eNB resource block coordination are 2 that spring to mind which I think you lose in 4G if you don't go with a single-vendor approach. And good luck actually getting rival radio vendors to talk X2 to each other nicely...

dicknuckle 6y ago

5G is definitely changing the way cell networks are built although traditional towers are still a part of this. my understanding is that traditional towers will operate on spectrum that reaches out for miles like a traditional tower, while the smaller towers built on lampposts and street corners will be operating on higher bandwidth spectrum that doesn't reach as far, requiring more small towers in densely populated areas. open RANs are the key to making sure all the operators can use existing infra instead of overbuilding each other. sure we'll have a ton of small 5g towers in dense areas, but imagine how many towers would be installed if individual telecoms had to build their own networks.

mycall 6y ago
It really is becoming a public utility and should be treated as such by government and business. The original concept for "cellular division" for higher density bandwidth is why we call them cell towers in the first place.
- frandroid 6y ago
  But how can we create billionaires like Carlos Slim and Naguib Sawiris in every country without cellphone companies?
Nokinside 6y ago
5G spectrum covers low-band and-mid band spectrum from 1G through 4G LTE frequencies. Then there is this new high-band. First 5G installations are deployed into new high-band. 5G installations in the countryside will be low band that is more efficient than 4G/LTE. You can have _less_ base stations than LTE, not more in the low-band. 5G NR is more efficient radio interface in all bandwidths.
- apcragg 6y ago
  That is not true. T-Mobile has Release 15 5G deployed in the 600 MHz band right now -- I'm looking at being broadcast over-the-air on my spectrum analyzer here in the south eastern US.

kube-system 6y ago

What incentive do lower cost manufacturers have to cooperate with this?

zymhan 6y ago
It would allow them to spend less time designing an entire software ecosystem, for one. Sort of like OpenDaylight https://www.opendaylight.org https://www.opendaylight.org
- kube-system 6y ago
  Given that wireless equipment vendors already have an existing system, I can’t imagine that the marginal cost of maintaining it outweighs the benefits of vendor lock-in. ... unless I'm missing something about the economics of the situation. Edit: I see now -- from another link in this section, it sounds like this may be beneficial for the growth of smaller niche players who have tiny market share.
Someone 6y ago
Unless this adds significant costs to the hardware, I would think lower cost manufacturers would embrace this, as it allows operators to say “let’s buy a few of those cheaper ones to see how they fare”, whereas nowadays, they would have to switch a significant part of their network over to hardware they may not fully trust. Interoperability, in general, is good for smaller or cheaper players. As a corollary, this announcement made me think Nokia must be a small player in this market.
PeterisP 6y ago
Operators are likely to demand this feature. Previously, they'd usually prefer a 'monoculture' so it's all or nothing for lower cost manufacturers at the time when an operator rolls out their network or a new generation of it, and an extreme barrier of entry for a new manufacturer. Cooperating could enable a lower cost manufacturer to sell hardware to operators that otherwise would not even consider them due to compatibility issues with their existing gear.

mikorym 6y ago

I've been following Nokia for the past two years and watched the two documentaries about them (they are similar; one has more Finnish). [1] [2] My conclusions about them are this: 1. They can become a major player in 5G for Europe. 2. The places in Finland where they operated did not become ghost towns as you may have thought. 3. They are still very competent. In fact, when their mobile business was bought out by Microsoft, it appears that they were a leader in car navigation systems. Not sure if MS considered that when doing the takeover and not sure whether they took it over. 4. They have always been a telecom infrastructure player and become more so after the 2010–2012 fiasco. They were working on Linux derived OSs for phones. I always thought they tanked due to their marriage to Symbian and ignorance towards Android. I am not sure anymore; I have become more old school and like people that write their own code. 5. The Finns seem to blame hubris for their downfall. I think even without hubris, you can't really compete against countries with a lot of people and low wages. 6. Finland remains an awesome country. Their engineers are probably better than Germans, but they are 1/10th in number. (Sorry, I like to take on the Germans in a challenge. Maybe it's because they are actually something to take on?) [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5654050/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5654050/ [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8717008/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8717008/

pavlov 6y ago
On point 3, the car navigation systems and map data were a separate division called Here. Microsoft wanted to buy it together with the mobile phones, but Nokia held out for a better price, and finally sold Here in 2015 to a consortium of Audi, Daimler and BMW for about $3B USD. On point 6, as a Finn working in USA, I would add that the stereotypical Finnish engineer in my mind is someone very capable who believes their job is finding reasons to say “no” to ideas. This is a paradigmatic cultural difference from America where most people feign enthusiasm loosely. IMHO one of the things that holds Finland back is the belief that pessimism wins out in the long run.
- kazen44 6y ago
  an interesting anecdote on the pessimism aspect. As someone from another northern european country, "pessimism" seems to be a phenomenon that is very common in most western/northern european countries. People are critical about radical ideas (usually for good reason imo) and blind optimism makes you look like a fool.