Assessing Nationwide Distributed Open RAN Deployments with the OpenRAN@Brasil Testbed

The deployment of a nationwide Open RAN testbed is crucial for addressing Brazil's unique telecommunications challenges. The OpenRAN@Brasil program introduced a large-scale distributed testbed uniquely designed to address the specific challenges of Open RAN deployments in Brazil. It spans diverse regions, incorporating Brazil's heterogeneous infrastructure and extensive geographical distances using commercial equipment, thus providing realistic testing conditions. This article presents the OpenRAN@Brasil WCT, showing its architecture, challenges, foreseen potentials, and research initiatives. It also provides a performance evaluation of the distributed WCT in a long-distance 5th Generation (5G) connection link, focusing on the impact of midhaul latency performance. The insights gained are crucial for refining deployment strategies and ensuring robust performance in challenging environments, and have broader applicability, offering valuable lessons for other regions facing similar deployment challenges.