The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of RAN infrastructure is a major cost for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Reduction in the TCO will help in improving the profitability of MNOs. With the advent of 5G, MNOs are moving towards Open RAN solutions. This transition allows them to move from single-vendor to multi-vendor hardware architectures, which are better optimized to run RAN workloads.

However, there is a lack of portability in current DU software. This forces DU software vendors to maintain multiple software versions for multiple hardware platforms.

This whitepaper describes the development framework for a portable RAN solution. RAN-Wiser™ is a standardized software framework for RAN workloads integrated into a Telco cloud infrastructure software. It provides a uniform model for the hardware underneath and lowers the barrier to build portable RAN software. This solution enables mobile network operators to work with custom RAN hardware without sacrificing the benefits of COTS solutions. This is an important step in the development of a Truly Open Virtualized RAN.