Open RAN Overview

This chapter provides a quick overview of the book chapter by chapter. The chapter authors provide a unique perspective of Open RAN having worked in this industry for many years. Cellular networks have evolved rapidly from the early 2G era to more and more complex networks of today in 5G. In all these generations, interoperability between RAN equipment from different vendors was deprioritized at the expense of adding overall functional capability. Open RAN attempts to change this and enable operators to mix and match components and goes one step further by opening the interfaces inside the base station. It also allows operators to bring more agility into the ecosystem and stimulate greater innovation. New open and disaggregated architectures, software, and hardware such as Open RAN give operators the flexibility to extend 5G to more users in a cost‐effective, secure, and energy‐efficient way.