Introduction to ORAN
The Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) is similar to a traditional cellular network, except it offers more flexibility and easier use. It also reduces costs by implementing a single infrastructure that can be shared across all service providers. ORAN allows carriers to focus on the quality of their subscribers’ experience while competing on price and service offerings. From the subscriber perspective, choosing a service provider becomes easy because the network is designed to work with any device, regardless of manufacturer or operating system.
Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) is a communications infrastructure that provides wireless telecommunications services to customers. Interference between radio systems has been a problem since the beginning of radio communication. The Open Radio Access Network, or ORAN, is designed to solve this problem by providing an open framework for developing new technologies without hampering existing services. ORAN allows third-party equipment manufacturers to create devices that communicate with each other using a common standard.
Open Radio Access Networks (ORAN) are wireless networks created with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) or open source software and equipment. They provide wireless broadband access to the Internet via flat-rate pricing and transparent service level agreements (SLAs). All users can subscribe to ORANs without needing to understand a lot of technical details. Open Radio Access Network (Oran) is a network architecture that is being defined as part of the European research project FP6 organised by the European Commission. The aim of the Oran specification is to encourage the development of new innovations for WLAN access networks, both for wireless LANs and ad hoc networks. The Open Radio Access Network is a self-organizing, self-configuring, open access network formed from radio nodes that communicate via wireless media. The ORAN allows distributed intelligence to be added at the edge of the network with minimal central coordination. The Open Radio Access Network is a fully optimized and integrated solution including the enterprise network and radio access network. The solution enables an operator to provide core network and value added services over its radio networks, with a high level of quality, performance, convenience and cost effectiveness. Various types of Open Radio Access Networks (ORANs) have been proposed such as IEEE 802.22 and IEEE 802.11af in the recent years. Some of these represent a new opportunity to further reduce network deployment cost, since a limited number of macro base stations are replaced by low-cost small cells spread over a wide area, while others may require the implementation of more sophisticated management mechanisms due to the local state information that needs to be maintained at each small cell. In this chapter, we describe the most important concepts related to ORANs. We start with an overview of typical architectures and technologies used for implementing HetNet (heterogeneous networks) scenarios where integration with existing cellular systems is required. OpenRadioAccess is a set of protocols for communication over wireless personal area networks. It is suitable for low-power and lossy networks running on various kinds of radio, such as 802.15.4, Bluetooth, UWB and others. These modules provide developers with a way to easily add wireless capabilities to their products without writing any complex protocol code themselves and without paying expensive royalty fees to any wireless standards body.
