With MWC 2027 approaching, it looks like the Radio Access Network (RAN) is embracing its latest reinvention. This time, it's all about AI-RAN.
The RAN is something of the Madonna of telecoms. It's been around for decades, and every few years emerges with a new look designed to capture the mood of the moment. Not every reinvention produces a hit, of course, but you have to admire its staying power.
My colleagues at Temono have a few more years in the industry under their belts than I do, but even since I started working in telecoms, I've witnessed a fair few of these eras.
When Openness was in Vogue
My first taste came working with Parallel Wireless, when Open RAN was very much in Vogue. The idea of opening up mobile networks to new, challenger suppliers, reducing reliance on the established equipment vendors and giving operators greater flexibility was generating plenty of enthusiasm. The RAN was in its 'underdog' phase, as Parallel, Mavenir, Altiostar and others were all trying to carve out a piece of the pie by advocating for open and interoperable interfaces.
I subsequently worked with the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), founded to encourage a more open telecoms ecosystem with the RAN a particular focus. A lot has changed since then. Ericsson has become a prominent member and is featuring across TIP’s FYUZ agenda. One of the industry's biggest vendors embracing a movement originally associated with challenging it. Who'd have thought?
Challenger-championing maybe didn't work as a look, but 'open' has at least been a partial success.
When the RAN went mainstream
Around this time, the Huawei saga also gave the RAN an unlikely taste of mainstream fame. Suddenly, mobile network equipment was making national headlines, with governments and security experts having plenty to say about which vendors operators should be allowed to use. Operators might have fancied telling politicians Papa Don't Preach, although the government wasn't particularly interested in leaving the choice of suppliers entirely up to them.
From a telecoms PR perspective, it was quite something. Previously, getting national and business journalists interested in the intricacies of radio networks was…umm… no easy task. Now, journalists from the WSJ, FT and more were actively replying to months old pitches saying okay, Express Yourself (oh yeah we’re going that niche…)
Provided your client was willing to have an opinion on the future of 5G networks, securing briefings became almost embarrassingly straightforward.
The RAN gets intelligent
Next came the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), xApps and the promise of making networks smarter through software.
I worked with Cohere Technologies during this period, when the prospect of squeezing significantly more capacity out of existing spectrum was getting people excited. The idea of an app store for the RAN, where third-party developers could introduce new capabilities without needing to replace the underlying equipment, sounded like a bit of a no-brainer.
Someone once said life is a mystery, and seemingly so was how the RIC was going to make money.
The problem was getting everyone Into the Groove. Operators, equipment vendors and software developers all had to play their part which is not particularly straightforward in an industry where proprietary technology and vendor lock-in have been the norm for decades.
Iain Morris at Light Reading has covered this brilliantly, including the challenges innovative vendors encountered in getting technology adopted. Impressive technical results weren't necessarily enough to overcome the commercial realities of the RAN ecosystem.
For all the potential, the RIC's ambitions became somewhat Hung Up on the practicalities
AI-RAN takes the stage
Which brings us to the latest look, and the one we'll no doubt see plenty of at MWC 2027.
AI-RAN is an interesting one, given that the industry has been talking about AI-driven network optimisation for a while. The ambitions are considerably broader this time around, extending from improving radio processing and spectral efficiency to potentially turning mobile networks into distributed AI computing platforms. AI is very much the topic du jour, and the RAN was never going to sit this one out.
Nokia is making one of the biggest bets, particularly through its partnership with Nvidia, while early work with operators including Deutsche Telekom and Virgin Media O2 has produced some encouraging results.
It's interesting stuff, although the question of commercial viability hasn't gone away.
Operators have enough demands on their budgets without another expensive network transformation, and the history of the RAN suggests that clever technology doesn't always translate into widespread adoption.
‘Cause we are living in a material world, after all, and getting operators to invest in the latest reinvention might take something like a prayer (double bubble!)
New look, same artist
Looking back at the various RAN eras I've witnessed, perhaps it isn't having an identity crisis after all.
Open RAN, the RIC and AI-RAN might involve different technologies, vendors and increasingly fashionable acronyms, but the underlying ambitions remain familiar. Better performance, greater efficiency, more flexibility and, ideally, something operators can make money from.
Through it all, the RAN is still doing the rather important job of connecting our devices to mobile networks. We can change its appearance as many times as we like, but it's not going anywhere.
Whether AI-RAN proves to be its Ray of Light moment remains to be seen. Maybe it'll be another commercial hit, or maybe we'll be discussing the next reinvention in a few years.
Either way, I'm sure I'll still be finding ways to shoehorn song lyrics into a blog about it…
Thinking ahead to MWC? Explore Temono’s MWC page here.
