The Journey to Virtualized RAN – Insights 2021

Date: 22nd July

Time: 3pm BST

A lot has happened since Q4 2019 when Heavy Reading surveyed communications service providers (CSPs) on their plans for virtualization – and, specifically vRAN. In early 2021, the team checked in with the carriers to see how their plans had changed – either delayed or accelerated – over the course of the intervening chasm that was 2020. Respondents from around the world shared how their plans for virtual network functions (VNFs), including virtual firewalls, DNS, SBC/IMS, virtualized 4G network cores (or virtual evolved packet cores [vEPCs]) and virtualized radio access networks (vRANs) have evolved.

Today, the industry is focused on 5G transitions and investments, with many of these technologies and use cases assuming a virtualized RAN – one that is container-based and cloud-native. How far down the path toward vRAN are the carriers today? What are the drivers and inhibitors? How have these plans changed from our Q4 2019 survey? How have events of the past year – a pandemic, elections, Brexit, etc. – impacted these carriers and the industry?

In this webinar, Heavy Reading Principal Analyst Jennifer Clark and Red Hat Chief Telecommunications Architect Azhar Sayeed reveal and interpret the results of the 2021 survey, looking specifically at:

• Progress in network function deployments
• Preferences for horizontal and vertical approaches to network development
• Perceived benefits and obstacles to vRAN and open RAN deployment
• The evolution toward cloud-native computing

Speakers:

Jennifer Clark, Principal Analyst – Cloud Infrastructure & Edge Computing, Heavy Reading

Azhar Sayeed, Chief Architect, Service Providers, Red Hat