“We need to get there” – AT&T talks RAN modernization

AT&T says it will shift 70% of its network traffic to open and interoperable platforms by 2026 as part of its RAN modernization plan

Last year, AT&T announced a roughly $14 billion plan to shift 70% of its network traffic to open and interoperable platforms by 2026. At the heart of this plan is a unified Radio Access Network (RAN) software level provided by Swedish provider Ericsson. According to Todd Zeiler, vice president of network and wireless access construction & engineering at AT&T, this shift lays the foundation for the telco’s broader RAN modernization program.

“A device is much more than just a smartphone, so today my device peer… has to work with at least two different software providers that I get for the RAN layer. So when he wakes up in the morning, his task is twice as complex,” Zeiler said RCR Wireless News, When AT&T completes its modernization program, it will be possible to move a “cutting edge of devices” to a single RAN interface software layer to interact across the entire network.

“You can imagine the efficiency. “If you then trace that through the device, through the RAN, through the transport, through the core, all the way to the content, you can see that that’s a layer less complexity to get that end-to-end slice,” he said.

And here, he continued, AT&T will introduce new AI functionalities based on this virtualized and simplified network.

But before that happens, Zeiler said, AT&T will first release the radios and basebands so it can mix and match the hardware over time. “Step one is a special purpose open baseband unit that we purchased from Ericsson, but shortly after that you will start taking the Ericsson RAN software and pushing it to the cloud,” he explained. This cloud part comes from Dell – you can read more about their cloud connections here.

At the top of the cell site, Zeiler continued, AT&T could have an Ericsson radio or a third-party radio – which is possible because it’s an open ecosystem – but at the bottom, the telco will initially have an open Ericsson baseband . “Ultimately, I will replace the (baseband) with a Dell server that is now independent of the software I install on it in the future,” he added, explaining that AT&T will be bringing additional computing power to the Dell server at that time can.

Now let’s go back to AI: “You can start layering the AI ​​there, and if you split that baseband unit in half, you have a virtualized DU and a centralized CU.” Now you’re in a data center-like environment where “You want to co-locate the AI/ML compute power and the GPUs,” he explained, calling this RAN modernization strategy a “crawl, walk, run” approach. “We have to get there,” said Zeiler. “We need to start thinking about how we can run the network more efficiently, whether it’s by optimizing resources (or) by predicting failures.”

The final – and most important – piece, according to Zeiler, is the SMO, or Service Management Orchestration, which supports open software interfaces to facilitate rApp communication. rApps are specialized microservices that maximize the operational efficiency of the wireless network.

By making the SMO layer a single pane of glass, AT&T can see every provider and customer interacting with its network, further increasing efficiency. “Then I open an app store (rApps) that allows me to increase efficiency on the network by developing apps that save me money,” he said. “That’s the big goal.”

While 6G is widely referred to as AI-native, AT&T isn’t really tying its RAN journey to any specific generation of technology. “We use marketing language – 5G, 5G-Advanced, 6G – but this time it’s really important that we don’t just introduce a new spectrum and have a new indicator on the phone and install a big marketing machine behind it,” Zeiler argued. “We believe 5G needs to evolve, whether it’s called ‘next G’ or 6G. Even though we are not 100% sure where it will come from, we believe what we are doing now will give us the flexibility (to monetize).”