In September 2022, Verizon announced that it was deploying 8,000 virtualized radio access network (vRAN) sites across the United States, with a goal of having more than 20,000 deployed by the end of 2025. There are currently over 10,000 sites). This was a major milestone that set Verizon’s network apart and demonstrated our commitment to advanced technology in our network. But what exactly is vRAN? What is the purpose of all these sites? And how can virtualization benefit consumers and businesses? Let’s take a look.
What is a virtualized radio access network (vRAN) and how does it work?
Before we get into virtualized radio access networks, let’s start with the basic radio access network (RAN). RAN connects wireless devices to the network core and provides computing and workload capabilities, Internet connectivity, and more. The RAN consists of cell site hardware and software. The most common examples are antennas and radios on cell towers or buildings.
Historically, RANs were typically built around hardware and software provided by a single company. It was not possible to mix and match one company’s hardware with another company’s software, making the system less flexible.
As networks evolve and customer demands and expectations change, new capabilities, especially those introduced by 5G’s high speeds and low latency, will require greater flexibility and scalability to manage networks and offer a variety of services. The need for improvement became clearer.
“If we wanted to make a change to our network, whether it was software or hardware, it was a very manual process to make the change,” explains Karen Schulz, global network and technology communications at Verizon.
vRAN changes this in two ways. First, it decouples RAN hardware from software, so it no longer needs to come from a single provider. Second, move your software to the cloud. This is how to optimize the value of virtualization.
“Virtualization means you don’t have to go and touch a particular base station to change the software,” Schultz explains. “Now we can do that via the cloud. And once we virtualize, we can automate many functions and deploy changes faster for our customers.”
In fact, Verizon engineers were able to significantly speed up the deployment of improvements using virtualization. In six months, engineers were able to quadruple the number of cell sites receiving software upgrades overnight. This illustrates another important point. So our technology is our competitive advantage, and so are the people who run our network.
“Whenever there is a technological evolution in any part of our network, our employees rise to the challenge and become industry leaders overnight,” said Adam, senior vice president of technology strategy and planning.・Keppe says. “They’re really moving the industry forward.”
