Fabrice Bellard, who is quite famous on HN for his open source work, has founded a company for his own 5G implementation. And they are EU-based. [1]
I'm under the impression his work is closer to the "radio protocol" than the infrastructure management behind. Not sure if they are related to Open-RAN though...
Recently Nokia strongly communicates its commitment to Open-RAN. They want to be like Tesla or Toyota (in case of hybrid-drives): so good that competition is unable to keep up even after opening their patents. Once telcos grasp the benfits of open-interfaces infrastructure (eCPRI and stuff), there is no coming back to closed ecosystems.
The "radio protocol" is "open" since GSM, anyone can download standards from 3GPP and implement it accordingly. But the mere amount of knowledge and specialized hardware required to do this, even for single layer like L1, is tremendous. I think this is the real reason why we don't already have open-source implementation of the full stack.
EDIT: an afterthought - maybe the O-RAN is really a chance for open-source here. In the future, once O-RAN is accepted and widely deployed, we could work on implementing the stack piece-by-piece, layer-by-layer, filling the gaps with commercial software/hardware as we go, instead of doing everything at once...
Amarisoft and Nexedi also launched a joint company called Rapid.Space last year. It combines cloud and 4G/5G infrastructure operation and is "HyperOpen" = using open-source software, open hardware and open service.
> Amarisoft LTE and NR network software suit is a unique full software LTE and NR solution ... Our binary licenses can be fixed and bounded to a single hardware, floating on a USB dongle, or floating using a license server.
I suppose it's possible that their product includes some Open Source Software, while still using node-locked licenses. But it doesn't sound like it.
This press release [1] from 2020 makes it sound like Amarisoft is working on OpenRAN.
From reading HN it seems like there needs to be open source radio hardware as well to break the dependency on qualcomm, broadcom and whomever else is supplying chips. At least if the idea is to have something auditable.
Do we really need control over the radio hardware? Or can we treat them as dumb pipes, and use something like Tor to shield us from whoever can track who is using a radio channel?
Note: This is being pushed by the major telecom company in the EU
> The Continent's "big four" telcos Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone and Orange on Wednesday published a joint "memorandum of understanding" pledging to prioritize the development of "Open RAN" technology
They want to have more interoperabilities between equipment and more supplier basically :
> Open RAN encompasses the idea of chopping up the 5G supply chain into smaller pieces and imposing standards on equipment and software firms so their products can work together
This makes a lot of sense for telco since it would drastically lower the cost of their deployment and the maintenance of the 5G network.
Right now, if you take your equipments from one supplier, you are basically locked-in with this supplier since they are not compatible with each-other. So if one equipment fail, you need to buy a replacement from the same supplier.
>This makes a lot of sense for telco since it would drastically lower the cost of their deployment and the maintenance of the 5G network.
Actually no.
Integrated solutions are cheaper to make at scale (for how much it's sold it's a different question)
Also integration of multiple vendors into one working solutions has additional costs both for deployment and maintenance/support later (instead of 1 piece of equipment you have 5 boxes with 5 vendors pointing fingers at each other when something fails). Also more points of failure
It'll probably never happen, but we should look into solving the technical debt in our communications infrastructure – even if breaking backward-compatibility
.
Huge issues and vulnerabilities wrt security and privacy that are probably solvable, but were never considered in the first place.
I think there's a growing acceptance that SS7 is a protocol from the past. It's based on a set of assumptions (around telecoms operators being trustworthy) that just never held true.
The problem is that it continues to be the lowest common denominator for a lot of the world to stay connected from a telecoms perspective.
Moving to newer protocols makes a lot of sense, but for much of the developing world I imagine they'll continue to rely on legacy technologies like SS7 for some time to come, as they have that hardware in place etc.
The driver away from legacy equipment in the West will likely be the skills shortage as engineers retire and there's a need to move to newer equipment that can be maintained and understood. There's enough of a shortage of new talent, let alone new talent that understands the old telecoms world way of thinking.
In addition this article is also strongly opinionated, charged with emotions, feels like stitched together without second reading IMHO. Like:
> It would allow operators to procure [...] with different players to piece together a 5G network, breaking the market power of “end-to-end” vendors like Ericsson and Nokia.
And later:
> the O-RAN Alliance. It's a standard-setting body that includes [...] leading vendors Ericsson and Nokia.
First, it doesn't work like that. They will still offer end-to-end deals, even with ORAN, it's just that winning conditions change. Second, why would companies support standardization effort that is supposedly intended to "harm" them? :D
> The operators, now barred by governments from using Huawei in several European markets, see Open RAN as a fix to what they consider a duopoly in the vendor market that allows Ericsson and Nokia to charge higher prices for 5G equipment.
I LOL'ed. From what I know, Ericsson and Nokia does not charge higher prices for 5G equipment due to duopoly, because that would be called price collusion and the journalists don't have proof to back it up. Also, Ericsson and Nokia are fighting each other for every piece of market share, I don't see how pumping up the prices would help here.
FYI, if anyone is wondering how the US Government spending fits in this puzzle, remember that when Motorola broke itself up, they sold their mobile infrastructure business to a Nokia/Siemens joint venture, which still has thousands of engineers working in the Chicago suburbs.
Most, if not all, of this money is going to be spent in the USA within the American tech sector, even if the company name is European.
I see, I was wondering why you said that, indeed the linked article[0] says million, this article typod. Yeah nearly a trillion dollars for any technology invested on in one swoop would be quite jaw dropping (this comment may not age well if inflation makes trillion the new billion).
Telephone networks are a dead business. You look at European telecom stocks and they just keep going down year after year. Wont be long before they're all bankrupts and will get nationalized again.
IMO, this would be a bad move. Let them die. Voice and text over the internet is here to stay. In the last two years I didn't a single phone call thanks to WhatsApp, Signal and Instagram.
Reliance Jio, a major player in India, is working on a OpenRAN based solution too [1].
Airtel, one of it's rivals is considering a similar approach , potentially joining in the efforts.
Governments do not understand the economics behind internet connectivity, they are just treating it as a way to make money, for example selling spectrum licenses to the highest bidder.
For those of you interested in a little of the history leading up to this point, particularly from a European perspective, you might find this of interest from me, written in 2019. A number of events lead up to our present dilemma.
https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/
to make code appear to no longer use unsafe functions, and make auditing harder. [2]
- When critical vulnerabilities were found (arising from poor code quality in user-facing protocols, and an old operating system), they were fixed, but the fix introduced another major issue into the product in question. [1]
- Reliance on out-of-support RTOS in products, and no alignment of own product lifespans to external support lifespans, and no identification of this issue by themselves. [1]
- Previously, 70 full copies of 4 different OpenSSL versions were found in products (and 304 partial copies), some of which dated back to 2006 with multiple disclosed vulnerabilities in each, showing no dependency management at all, and no management of vulnerabilities in dependencies. [2]
Does it matter if they did? At this point, everyone has to assume the CCP has the ability to take complete control of any Chinese company it wants to (see Ant Group). I’m not sure why they even bother with the “monopoly” or “corruption” pretenses at this point.
[+] [-] jpfr|5 years ago|reply
I'm under the impression his work is closer to the "radio protocol" than the infrastructure management behind. Not sure if they are related to Open-RAN though...
[1] https://www.amarisoft.com/about-us/
[+] [-] ferdek|5 years ago|reply
The "radio protocol" is "open" since GSM, anyone can download standards from 3GPP and implement it accordingly. But the mere amount of knowledge and specialized hardware required to do this, even for single layer like L1, is tremendous. I think this is the real reason why we don't already have open-source implementation of the full stack.
EDIT: an afterthought - maybe the O-RAN is really a chance for open-source here. In the future, once O-RAN is accepted and widely deployed, we could work on implementing the stack piece-by-piece, layer-by-layer, filling the gaps with commercial software/hardware as we go, instead of doing everything at once...
[+] [-] frequent|5 years ago|reply
Press release: https://handbook.rapid.space/RS-Hyper.Open.Converged.Cloud.D...
More info on 5G technology: https://handbook.rapid.space/evangelist/RS-Presentation.For....
(disclaimer: I work for Nexedi and help out on Rapid.Space)
[+] [-] wyldfire|5 years ago|reply
I suppose it's possible that their product includes some Open Source Software, while still using node-locked licenses. But it doesn't sound like it.
This press release [1] from 2020 makes it sound like Amarisoft is working on OpenRAN.
[1] https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-businesswire/56f3c23c33a...
[+] [-] technofiend|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steeve|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maeln|5 years ago|reply
> The Continent's "big four" telcos Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone and Orange on Wednesday published a joint "memorandum of understanding" pledging to prioritize the development of "Open RAN" technology
They want to have more interoperabilities between equipment and more supplier basically :
> Open RAN encompasses the idea of chopping up the 5G supply chain into smaller pieces and imposing standards on equipment and software firms so their products can work together
This makes a lot of sense for telco since it would drastically lower the cost of their deployment and the maintenance of the 5G network.
Right now, if you take your equipments from one supplier, you are basically locked-in with this supplier since they are not compatible with each-other. So if one equipment fail, you need to buy a replacement from the same supplier.
[+] [-] tguvot|5 years ago|reply
Actually no. Integrated solutions are cheaper to make at scale (for how much it's sold it's a different question) Also integration of multiple vendors into one working solutions has additional costs both for deployment and maintenance/support later (instead of 1 piece of equipment you have 5 boxes with 5 vendors pointing fingers at each other when something fails). Also more points of failure
[+] [-] eivarv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] g_p|5 years ago|reply
The problem is that it continues to be the lowest common denominator for a lot of the world to stay connected from a telecoms perspective.
Moving to newer protocols makes a lot of sense, but for much of the developing world I imagine they'll continue to rely on legacy technologies like SS7 for some time to come, as they have that hardware in place etc.
The driver away from legacy equipment in the West will likely be the skills shortage as engineers retire and there's a need to move to newer equipment that can be maintained and understood. There's enough of a shortage of new talent, let alone new talent that understands the old telecoms world way of thinking.
[+] [-] throw7|5 years ago|reply
My jaw dropped here when reading... but it's million, not billion.
[+] [-] ferdek|5 years ago|reply
> It would allow operators to procure [...] with different players to piece together a 5G network, breaking the market power of “end-to-end” vendors like Ericsson and Nokia.
And later: > the O-RAN Alliance. It's a standard-setting body that includes [...] leading vendors Ericsson and Nokia.
First, it doesn't work like that. They will still offer end-to-end deals, even with ORAN, it's just that winning conditions change. Second, why would companies support standardization effort that is supposedly intended to "harm" them? :D
> The operators, now barred by governments from using Huawei in several European markets, see Open RAN as a fix to what they consider a duopoly in the vendor market that allows Ericsson and Nokia to charge higher prices for 5G equipment.
I LOL'ed. From what I know, Ericsson and Nokia does not charge higher prices for 5G equipment due to duopoly, because that would be called price collusion and the journalists don't have proof to back it up. Also, Ericsson and Nokia are fighting each other for every piece of market share, I don't see how pumping up the prices would help here.
[+] [-] OldHand2018|5 years ago|reply
FYI, if anyone is wondering how the US Government spending fits in this puzzle, remember that when Motorola broke itself up, they sold their mobile infrastructure business to a Nokia/Siemens joint venture, which still has thousands of engineers working in the Chicago suburbs.
Most, if not all, of this money is going to be spent in the USA within the American tech sector, even if the company name is European.
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|5 years ago|reply
[0]: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20201118/policy/house-unanimousl...
[+] [-] u678u|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fulafel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ClumsyPilot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monopoledance|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tpmx|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KaiserPro|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diegoholiveira|5 years ago|reply
IMO, this would be a bad move. Let them die. Voice and text over the internet is here to stay. In the last two years I didn't a single phone call thanks to WhatsApp, Signal and Instagram.
[+] [-] bhaavan|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/for-home-grow...
[+] [-] est|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zoobab|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waheoo|5 years ago|reply
Pretty huge shift in the wholesale market dynamics if this is whats happening here.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/orange-nokia-security-5g/hua...
[+] [-] nickdothutton|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knorker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] signa11|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LatteLazy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] g_p|5 years ago|reply
In outline:
- Version management issues, with different firmwares being used for each operator, with significant variations in each one [1].
- Failures to follow Huawei's own secure coding guidance, and sustained examples of poor coding (examples of which include tricks of the form of:
to make code appear to no longer use unsafe functions, and make auditing harder. [2]- When critical vulnerabilities were found (arising from poor code quality in user-facing protocols, and an old operating system), they were fixed, but the fix introduced another major issue into the product in question. [1]
- Reliance on out-of-support RTOS in products, and no alignment of own product lifespans to external support lifespans, and no identification of this issue by themselves. [1]
- Previously, 70 full copies of 4 different OpenSSL versions were found in products (and 304 partial copies), some of which dated back to 2006 with multiple disclosed vulnerabilities in each, showing no dependency management at all, and no management of vulnerabilities in dependencies. [2]
[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
[+] [-] baskire|5 years ago|reply
Sure USA might do the same. But the USA is aligned closer culturally and values wise to the rest of the west
[+] [-] joejerryronnie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] abledon|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] afrojack123|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] naringas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zoobab|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crispycrafter2|5 years ago|reply
The West has blocked Huawei from being used now they force the populis to demand open networks.
[+] [-] shimonabi|5 years ago|reply
Don't fall for the talk of "openness". Remember that the EU itself was established as a German-French cartel.
[+] [-] ClumsyPilot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burtness|5 years ago|reply