With the proliferation of global 5G availability, a new era of telecommunications is being brought into existence. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) have a once in a decade opportunity to go beyond connectivity and deliver a host of new services to enterprises across every industry.
While 5G is the focal point for this new chapter in telecom’s history, the network transformation taking place to enable its application is equally important — perhaps even more so.
New territory means new complexity
To capitalize on the potential of 5G, the telecom industry must overcome deep technical and strategic challenges including:
- Systems Integration — Integrating new systems in an Open RAN network can be complex and require new orchestration, automation and management capabilities to master.
- Security — Multi-vendor open networks bring an increased threat surface area, one that will rely on new security frameworks to safeguard against nefarious acts.
- Scalability — Early experimentation with Open RAN architectures has been limited to small scale deployments. Ensuring progress achieved at these sites is scalable to larger areas is critical.
- Interoperability — The value and flexibility multi-vendor open networks deliver may also increase the potential for interoperability issues between certain configurations of hardware and software.
- Upfront cost — CSPs are investing heavily in network building at a time when traditional income from connectivity services continues to decline.
To learn more, read the full blog post here.