5G software saves the country? The United States has magnified Huawei again.

(Text/Observer Network, Chen Chen) Following the worldwide crackdown on Huawei's 5G equipment, the U.S. government has made a "new big move"-calling domestic first-class operators and technology companies to develop open source 5G software to replace Huawei's products. In this regard, Huawei said that without the company's patent authorization, these software and hardware will be 1-2 years behind their similar products.

in fact, the development of open source RAN software has a long history, and the ecology is gradually expanding. Under the impetus of the US government, there is a view that Open RAN with universal and compatible features will "subvert, break or threaten" the rules of the game in the traditional base station equipment market. But this is also questioned as exaggerated and unrealistic.

At present, operators all over the world have formed several open source RAN alliances, and most telecom equipment manufacturers have joined them, but Huawei is relatively unique. Huawei has said that it is "hesitating" for the reason that there is no plan to join, and the industry also has different opinions. However, under the current international situation, "preparing for famine" cannot be ignored by Huawei.

Call "Military Forces" to Attack

On February 5th, local time, according to The Wall Street Journal, in order to weaken Huawei's dominant position in the field of 5G, the United States is calling the country's top operators and technology companies, such as AT&T, Microsoft and Dell, to work together to build advanced software for 5G communication networks.

It is reported that the plan will be based on the agreement of some American companies on general technical standards, which will allow developers' 5G software to operate on devices produced by almost all hardware manufacturers. This move can reduce the dependence on Huawei equipment, if not eliminate it.

Larry Kudlow, White House economic adviser, said that the ultimate goal is to ensure that "the American 5G architecture and infrastructure" comes from domestic companies. However, he also pointed out that Ericsson and Nokia may be participants in the creation of software standards, given their large businesses in the United States.

"Business Insider" website reported that the White House, Dell and Microsoft intend to "save the country with software", instead of catching up with Huawei by developing 5G infrastructure hardware. Kudla emphasized that 5G software is becoming increasingly important and replacing hardware. For example, Dell and Microsoft are rapidly developing software and cloud functions that can replace many hardware devices.

Andy Purdy, chief security officer of Huawei's US branch, responded that this will have a negative impact on the revenue that 5G can realize in the US. "If the United States wants American or European companies to develop 5G hardware and software, it should encourage enterprises to start negotiating 5G technology licenses with Huawei."

On September 26, 219, Ren Zhengfei reiterated at a dialogue meeting: "In order to create fair competition opportunities for competitors, we believe that 5G technology should be exclusively licensed to an American company." Source: CBN

Purdy added that the United States should not shut Huawei out. Without Huawei's intellectual property rights, the above-mentioned "combined products" would be one to two years behind similar Huawei products in terms of function and reliability. In addition, he reiterated the company's previous proposal to provide a 5G technology license to an American competitor.

However, in view of the potential value of 5G technology to the overall economy, the US government is considering measures such as providing funds and reducing taxes to promote the related research and development of open 5G software standards. According to a report by the US communication media Lightreading1 on January 15th, a group of senators from both parties proposed that the US government should invest more than $1 billion in this kind of research that month.

Kudla said, "We are trying to create a complete set of American 5G infrastructure." The government is examining the plan and has not yet made a final decision, but President Trump has clearly expressed his support. Kudla did not give a specific timetable for the implementation of the plan, but other government officials predicted that the system would be online within 18 months.

Donald Trump's administration is determined to stop the pace of 5G in China. Source: Lightreading

"opportunity" has been planned for a long time

In fact, the measures taken by the United States to improve the right to speak on 5G devices have long been traceable. According to the Financial Times report on December 24th last year, the Pentagon is urging American telecom equipment manufacturers to work together on 5G technology to provide local products to replace Huawei.

Lisa Porter, who is in charge of the research and development of the US Department of Defense, has asked American companies to develop 5G software and make it open to potential competitors. Porter also warned that if they don't do this, they will risk being eliminated in the 5G competition, just like Kodak in the historical trend.

The report pointed out that this technology is Open RAN, that is, open wireless access network. It belongs to one of the plans of the TIP(Telecom Infra Project) Alliance, and TIP was initiated by Facebook in 216 to deploy telecommunication networks based on open source software/hardware. Vodafone has been the main promoter of OpenRAN since 217.

The plan breaks the "black box" architecture of traditional telecom equipment with integrated software and hardware and highly integrated interfaces through decoupling software and hardware and opening interfaces, so that operators can use different vendors' software and general hardware to realize modular hybrid networking, thus avoiding being locked by "one-stop" suppliers, reducing costs and improving bargaining power.

IT is understood that the TIP Alliance currently has more than 5 members, including operators, equipment vendors, chip vendors, IT vendors and system integrators, among which Vodafone, Telefó nica, Deutsche Telekom, BT, SK Telecom, Nokia, Intel and Samsung are the main members. TIP published access, backhaul and core &; The management of the three major project teams covers almost the whole communication network field.

it is worth noting that the three major Open RAN suppliers that have stood out in the TIP alliance at present-altiostar, Mavenir and Parallel Wireless-are all from the United States. These companies mainly provide end-to-end cloud native network software for operators, and their products have landed and been partially commercialized in the United States, Japan and other places.

John Baker, Senior Vice President of Mavenir Source: Lightreading

American officials are not the only ones who see Open RAN as an opportunity to replace Huawei. Mavenir told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at a recent meeting that this method "can stimulate American suppliers to enter the 5G supply chain" and promote domestic "technology and software manufacturing instead of outsourcing to China".

subvert the 5G equipment industry?

In October last year, Mavenir commissioned a consulting firm Senza Fili to conduct a survey of operators, which showed that 1% of them were considering adopting OpenRAN in some scenarios, 43% were willing to replace the existing equipment supply, 25% said that cost saving was the reason for choosing multiple equipment suppliers, and 84% of them hoped that RRU and BBU would come from different equipment suppliers.

two months later, China business news quoted insiders as saying that Open RAN might subvert the rules of the game in traditional base station equipment markets such as Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson and Nokia. Once it forms a scale, RAN software suppliers are American companies, and general-purpose chips are provided by Intel, which not only benefits the United States from the whole ecology, but also may reshuffle the 5G wireless equipment market.

however, judging from the domestic challenges in the United States, it may threaten the interests of some network equipment suppliers because of the need to open their own technologies to competitors and the wider choice of operators. The US government once asked Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Cisco to consider entering the radio transmission market, but both companies refused.

Xiang Ligang, a well-known observer in China's communication industry, said in an interview with Observer.com that Open RAN is a form of information distribution and an integral part of the 5G network, which is inseparable from the support of the 5G core network, base stations, communication systems, etc. These systems will eventually be made by equipment vendors such as Huawei and ZTE. Open RAN is just a piece of software, and it is exaggerated and unrealistic to say subversion.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the plan of open source 5G software in the United States is still in its infancy, and it still faces many obstacles, including the cooperation of companies with different priorities, and the fact that Microsoft and Dell are still "small white" in the face of highly specialized technologies used in cellular networks. In addition, the start time of this plan is relatively late.

patents are also a "roadblock" for open source programs. According to the latest report of Iplytics, a German patent data company, as of September 219, Huawei occupied an absolute commanding height with 3,325 applications among the necessary patents of 5G SEP in the world. The United States will face a huge patent wall if it wants to subvert the market of traditional communication equipment manufacturers.

According to a report by Lightreading1 on January 3th, the biggest problem is that Open RAN is not an American innovation or a unique patent. Although Altiostar, Mavenir and Parallel Wireless are headquartered in the United States, they all position themselves mainly as a software company. In terms of hardware, the best choice is Chinese mainland, Taiwan Province and South Korea.

The report said that it would be a nightmare for American officials eager to contain China to try to regulate the Open RAN market. Open RAN involves many suppliers all over the world, which will bring great detection and verification complexity. In addition, how to distribute the benefits, and which manufacturer the operator should look for to deal with the problem in time in case of failure are all problems around the open source 5G project.

"preparing for the disaster" cannot be ignored

Vodafone, the second largest telecom operator in the world, is at the forefront of exploring Open RAN technology. In October 219, Vodafone launched the OpenRAN scale test, and its suppliers were Mavenir and Parallel Wireless in the United States. Less than a month later, Vodafone announced a brand-new Open RAN bidding plan, with the goal of covering more than 1, sites and 4 million people in 14 European countries.

"At present, this is the biggest tender for this industry in the world." Yago Tenorio, head of Vodafone's network strategy and architecture department, said at the time, "This is a huge opportunity for OpenRAN to take shape. If necessary, we are ready to replace the site. Our goal is to have modern, up-to-date and low-cost equipment on every website. "

it is understood that Vodafone launched the Open RAN tender in order to stimulate competition in many ways, thus reducing costs and stimulating innovation. This will be beneficial to emerging equipment manufacturers and impact on traditional giants. In fact, based on similar goals, since 216, xRAN, Open vRAN, O-RAN and other project organizations jointly established by operators and technology companies from the United States, Germany, Finland, South Korea, Japan and China have emerged.

so, how do traditional equipment manufacturers cope with this challenge? According to the report of the American semiconductor magazine "EE Times" at the end of last year, Nokia is the most willing to accept the trend of Open RAN, and the company thinks that it is better to join in it than to try its best to resist it. Among the three giants, it is the only company that has joined TIP. In addition, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung have all joined the O-RAN alliance.

Huawei has no plans to join the O-RAN alliance for the time being due to doubts about the benefits brought by the "white box" base station. Zhou Yuefeng, chief marketing officer of Huawei's wireless product line, once said that Huawei's own research shows that there is a huge performance difference between "white box" and traditional wireless devices. "We hesitate to join, so as not to send the wrong message to the industry."

Gabriel Brown of Heavy Reading, a well-known American research consultancy, holds a similar view, saying that "Huawei is definitely emotionally interested in what is happening, but so far, its position is that the market for opening RAN is very small, and the performance of these systems will not be as good as its own integrated products."

However, John Baker, senior vice president of Mavenir's business development, said that Huawei refused to support this technology mainly because it didn't want to be a catalyst for new domestic infrastructure competitors. Last year, he told Light Reading: "If Huawei opens RAN in China, it will face dozens of new radio manufacturers in China encroaching on its market."

But in the current international situation, Huawei itself should know the importance of "spare tire" better than anyone else. Chen Ping, a researcher at China Research Institute of Fudan University, said that this year, we should still remember Chairman Mao's slogan of "preparing for war, preparing for famine and serving the people", and focus on the worst and strive for the best. This may have some implications for Huawei in the "hesitation".

This article is an exclusive contribution of Observer. It cannot be reproduced without authorization.