Thursday 5 November 2020

OpenSoftHaul - Disaggregated White Box Solution from TIP

Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is on a mission to disaggregate all network components so backhaul is no exception. OpenSoftHaul (OSH) is a wireless backhaul transport solution, adopting the principles of an open and disaggregated architecture as can be seen in the picture above. A detailed specification is available here

Axiata, Deutsche Telekom, MTN, Telefónica, and TIM Brasil have been coordinating a joint RFI to assess the global technology landscape for building the first-in-the-world service providers-driven Open and Disaggregated wireless backhaul solutions as a part of the Telecom Infra Project’s Wireless Backhaul Project Group (WBH PG). A press release on their website said:

The industry’s leading hardware and software technology providers have been asked to participate in the RFI, share information on their current technical capabilities, and supported features to measure the level of compliance and their plans to build solutions that fulfill the OpenSoftHaul (OSH) technical requirements developed in TIP.

“The Wireless Backhaul Project Group is a multi-operator led program. By having worked together since the ideation phase, we decided to execute a joint RFI to maximize the demand signal to the industry and the technology makers to accelerate innovation with solutions that will promote deployment flexibility and will lead the way in automation and operational efficiency,” said Dimitris Siomos, Principal Network Expert at Deutsche Telekom Group.

Multiple technology providers have answered the RFI, focusing on one or multiple components of the wireless backhaul system and have gone through a detailed technical evaluation with the operators of all RFI answers based on the following criteria: solution architecture, openness, functionality, scalability, availability & solution roadmap.

Following the technical evaluation, the operators have identified the following best positioned suppliers (in no particular order) :

  • For HW ODU : Aviat Networks, Ceragon, Intracom Telecom & SIAE Microelectronica
  • For HW IDU : Alpha Networks, Ceragon, Delta, Edgecore Networks & UfiSpace
  • For NOS SW : Aviat Networks, Ceragon, Adva Optical Networking, IP Infusion, Altran, Exaware & Infinera

The technical specifications document, represents the alignment of the operators on the transformation needed in the wireless backhaul technology. Together, they have defined the key aspects of an OpenSoftHaul product, including performance, openness, standardized interfaces, scalability, flexibility of deployment, operation, automation, and total cost of ownership.Earlier this year, the WBH PG published the technical specifications document of the OpenSoftHaul (OSH) solution.

The technical specifications document, represents the alignment of the operators on the transformation needed in the wireless backhaul technology. Together, they have defined the key aspects of an OpenSoftHaul product, including performance, openness, standardized interfaces, scalability, flexibility of deployment, operation, automation, and total cost of ownership.

The OpenSoftHaul RFI announcement webinar also provides a lot more details on OSH. It is embedded below.

OpenSoftHaul RFI Announcement from Telecom Infra Project on Vimeo.

Disaggregation is expected to play a huge role in future networks where operators are looking for plug and play components from multiple vendors to reduce dependency on any single vendor as well as reduce the TCO. We will start seeing some major rollouts of this in the next couple of years.

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