Open RAN Standardization

Nokia is involved in the largest number of commercial multi-vendor Open RAN deployments of any supplier. We have established Open RAN collaboration and testing centers in the U.S. and Germany, which help foster partnerships among Open RAN vendors as well as verify, introduce and launch Open RAN-compliant solutions in the market.

Nokia’s goal is to continue the current good work of the O-RAN ALLIANCE, while expanding Open RAN’s mission to make its impact far more comprehensive.

Today Open RAN efforts are focused primarily on open fronthaul deployments, which will enable a truly multi-vendor environment for the radio and distributed units in the network. Nokia supports those efforts, and it is driving specifications for fronthaul uplink performance improvements to feed demand for more symmetrical applications.

However, Open RAN has the potential to be move far beyond fronthaul. Nokia believes that the same principles of openness can be applied to nearly every aspect of the RAN. Therefore we are a strong advocate of multiple ongoing specification initiatives:

• Open O1 interfaces will ensure interoperability between different elements and the network’s Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) framework. In the O-RAN ALLIANCE and 3GPP, Nokia is promoting the reuse of management services, APIs and models, while encouraging the consolidation of O1 variants to simplify multi-vendor interoperability to ensure alignment and leverage of synergies.
• Evolving toward a cloud-native RAN will significantly benefit Open RAN. Nokia is contributing to the Acceleration Abstraction Layer (AAL) specification, which will bring in-line acceleration to Open RAN. Moreover, Nokia is advocating intent, declarative, autonomous orchestration and life-cycle management of cloud resources and cloudified network functions by leveraging the O2 interface, which connects the SMO to the Open-Cloud. We are also backing the Application Service Descriptor (ASD) to ensure cloud-native application packages are standardized and consistent with cloud infrastructures.
• Open RAN and security should go hand in hand. As an ethical supplier and firm believer in the “secure by design” principle, Nokia believes all aspects of Open RAN – including interfaces, APIs, packages, and all functions – need to be built with comprehensive security in mind. The aim is for all elements of Open RAN to move to a zero-trust architecture.

For Open RAN to have a global impact, the O-RAN ALLIANCE needs to further evolve toward becoming a truly world-class standards development organization (SDO). That’s why Nokia is driving many of the improvements to O-RAN ALLIANCE’s processes, which are essential to ensuring high-quality specifications and promote interoperability. For instance, Nokia has helped the ALLIANCE update its procedures to ensure compliance with U.S law. Meanwhile, Nokia is using its worldwide influence to promote global adoption of Open RAN specifications with no regional fragmentation.

Nokia embraces Open RAN’s complexity, but we are also systematically identifying opportunities to make Open RAN logically simple and attractive for the industry. To promote innovation and value creation, we are redirecting the focus of Open RAN away from prescribed solutions toward the creation of a powerful and flexible toolset. This toolkit will make it easy to create interoperable, differentiating solutions that capture the shift in value to cloud.

In essence, Nokia's leadership within the O-RAN ALLIANCE cannot merely be summed up by the number of specifications we propose, the quality of our contributions or work groups we co-chair. Nokia’s Open RAN leadership is also defined by our strategic orchestration of global Open RAN efforts and our commitment to elevating Open RAN within the standards community. Nokia is ensuring the industry reaps the benefits of global open standards seamlessly and cohesively.