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>Modern mobile networks work far better if you buy all the gear from one company Do they really? How resilient/robust is such a network? What does "better" mea

>Modern mobile networks work far better if you buy all the gear from one company Do they really? How resilient/robust is such a network? What does "better" mean in this context?

londons_explore 3y ago
It's akin to everyone in a company using outlook and an exchange server, vs everyone using a variety of mail clients and a mixture of server software. A bunch of features only work well if everyone uses outlook (integration with address books, calendars, free/busy info, auto video call invites, recalling messages). And you're gonna have far more headaches if you try to run a mis-mash of different servers and clients - although it is technically possible to get it all working.
- mbreese 3y ago
  But that’s the point of standardization. You are trying to ensure that the core functionality works for everyone regardless of who the vendor is. A mobile network much more akin to SMTP/IMAP than it is to intra office calendaring (but even then, CalDAV might have an opinion to offer). But this interoperability requires standards and vendors to adhere to those standards. But the only way you can get true interoperability is to test it, which is what this funding is about (IIUC).
  - g_p 3y ago
    Absolutely. Part of the challenge is that Open RAN opens up more (and new) interfaces that have to "play nice" and interoperate. Another part of the challenge is the commercial business models part - monolithic RAN vendors can integrate vertically and horizontally to offer a fully tested suite that goes beyond just what's in the standards. To get like-for-like performance in things that matter, you often need more than the base standards. For example there's all manner of proprietary data exchanged between radios to coordinate performance and interference, which is vendor proprietary. That's needed to win an edge over others and win contracts, in the eyes of big vendors. The issue right now is that even just getting 2 standardised boxes to work together needs exactly that testing you refer to - different versions of ASN.1 schemas for example, can break interop. There's often vendor tweaks to edge cases to fix interop. In the old world of a single vendor networks there was some "goods out" testing carried out on equipment to ensure it worked together as a solution. When you buy components and put them together, you need to do that testing (hence labs like this). One final interesting challenge will be around funding future R&D. Big telecoms vendors need to invest many billions per "G" to keep up and get patents into standards. Open RAN is likely to drive disaggregation and cost savings for operators, which will reduce margin and "fat" in contracts. That might make it harder for innovation in the "next big thing", if they can't make a profit from charging a margin on some COTS servers or software platform. Which isn't to say that more competition is a bad thing, but just that disaggregation might cause a slow-down in future innovation if reduced margins can't sustain it. Operators want Open RAN for cost savings, and that means someone's margin needs squeezed.

>Modern mobile networks work far better if you buy all the gear from one company Do they really? How resilient/robust is such a network? What does "better" mean in this context?

londons_explore 3y ago

It's akin to everyone in a company using outlook and an exchange server, vs everyone using a variety of mail clients and a mixture of server software. A bunch of features only work well if everyone uses outlook (integration with address books, calendars, free/busy info, auto video call invites, recalling messages). And you're gonna have far more headaches if you try to run a mis-mash of different servers and clients - although it is technically possible to get it all working.

mbreese 3y ago
But that’s the point of standardization. You are trying to ensure that the core functionality works for everyone regardless of who the vendor is. A mobile network much more akin to SMTP/IMAP than it is to intra office calendaring (but even then, CalDAV might have an opinion to offer). But this interoperability requires standards and vendors to adhere to those standards. But the only way you can get true interoperability is to test it, which is what this funding is about (IIUC).
- g_p 3y ago
  Absolutely. Part of the challenge is that Open RAN opens up more (and new) interfaces that have to "play nice" and interoperate. Another part of the challenge is the commercial business models part - monolithic RAN vendors can integrate vertically and horizontally to offer a fully tested suite that goes beyond just what's in the standards. To get like-for-like performance in things that matter, you often need more than the base standards. For example there's all manner of proprietary data exchanged between radios to coordinate performance and interference, which is vendor proprietary. That's needed to win an edge over others and win contracts, in the eyes of big vendors. The issue right now is that even just getting 2 standardised boxes to work together needs exactly that testing you refer to - different versions of ASN.1 schemas for example, can break interop. There's often vendor tweaks to edge cases to fix interop. In the old world of a single vendor networks there was some "goods out" testing carried out on equipment to ensure it worked together as a solution. When you buy components and put them together, you need to do that testing (hence labs like this). One final interesting challenge will be around funding future R&D. Big telecoms vendors need to invest many billions per "G" to keep up and get patents into standards. Open RAN is likely to drive disaggregation and cost savings for operators, which will reduce margin and "fat" in contracts. That might make it harder for innovation in the "next big thing", if they can't make a profit from charging a margin on some COTS servers or software platform. Which isn't to say that more competition is a bad thing, but just that disaggregation might cause a slow-down in future innovation if reduced margins can't sustain it. Operators want Open RAN for cost savings, and that means someone's margin needs squeezed.