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Ericsson | Ericsson - A leader in the O-RAN Alliance

Ericsson A leader in theO-RAN Allianceericsson.com/en/standardization/leadership

February 2024

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Ericsson | Ericsson - A leader in the O-RAN Alliance

Introduction

The O-RAN Alliance defines specifications in areas of RAN
automation, cloudification, and disaggregation. The ambitionof the O-RAN Alliance is to enable an Open RAN by creating a
multi-supplier RAN solution that allows for the separation - ordisaggregation - of hardware and software with open interfaces
and virtualization, hosting software that controls and updates
networks in the cloud.
Open RAN is an industry term for open radio access networkarchitecture. It is a RAN that includes open interoperable
interfaces and virtualization and is AI-enabled.
O-RAN Alliance is an industry initiative for additional
disaggregation, automation, and openness in RAN. Its main
objective is to create global technical specifications. It can beconsidered a complement to 3GPP.
With many claims on the Open RAN leadership, understanding
the impact of key companies in standardization within the O-RAN
Alliance is an important indication of technology leadership inOpen RAN development.
In this report, we analyze Ericsson’s impact on the O-RAN Allianceand show that Ericsson is the leading company in the developmentof Open RAN.

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Ericsson | Ericsson - A leader in the O-RAN Alliance4Ericsson | Ericsson - A leader in the O-RAN Alliance

O-RAN Alliance facts

O-RAN Alliance is a global alliance founded in 2018. As ofDecember 2023, the O-RAN Alliance had 32 "operator members”
and 262 “contributors and academic contributors" (O-RAN Allianceonly allows communication service providers as members, all othercompanies and entities are considered to be contributors).

For cloudification, the O-RAN working group 6 has two mainactivities. Firstly, it specifies the O2 interface that will be used
to deploy, manage, and orchestrate the cloud infrastructureused in the RAN. Secondly, it also specifies how hardware (HW)
acceleration can be implemented.

O-RAN Alliance creates technical specifications for RAN
automation, cloudification, and disaggregation.

An overview of the O-RAN Alliance workgroups and focus groups
is shown below. There are 11 work groups (WGs), five focus
groups (FGs) and one research group (RG). The Technical Steering
Committee (TSC) supervises the technical workgroups which areresponsible for O-RAN specification work. Each of the technicalworkgroups covers a part of the O-RAN architecture.

For network automation, the O-RAN Alliance is specifying twoalternative RAN Intelligent Controllers (RICs), Non-RealTime and
Near-RealTime RIC. NonRT RIC is specified in the O-RAN Allianceworking group 2, while NearRT RIC is specified in working group 3.
The overall architecture is specified in working group 1.
For RAN internal interfaces, the O-RAN Alliance has been working
on the development of interoperable profiles for interfaces specified
by 3GPP (especially F1, X2, and Xn interfaces) and on lower layer
split (LLS). Interoperable profiles are developed in working group 5,while LLS is developed in working group 4.

Security is critical to the entire Open RAN architecture. Previously
the Security Focus Group (SFG) was created to oversee the security
aspects of the entire open RAN ecosystem. The SFG has publishedseveral technical specifications, and operates much like a WG, as aresult of which, it was changed to WG11 (Security).

O-RAN TSCWork Groups & Responsibilities

WorkFocusGroupsand Research& Responsibilities
GroupsWG1 – Use Cases and overall Architecture

IEFG – Industry Engagement Focus GroupWG2 – Non-RT RIC and A1 interface

OSFG – Open Source Focus GroupWG3 – Near-RT RIC and E2 interface

SDFG – Standard Development Focus GroupWG4 – Open Fronthaul interface

TIFG – Test & Integration Focus GroupWG5 – Open 3GPP interfaces

SuFG – Sustainability Focus Grup

WG6 – Cloudiﬁcation and OrchestrationnGRG – next Generation Research GroupWG7 – White Box hardware
WG8 – Software Reference Design
WG9 – X-haul Transport
WG10 – Operation and Maintenance (OAM)
WG11 – Security (Formerly SFG)
Figure 1: O-RAN Alliance Technical Steering Committee structure5Ericsson | Ericsson - A leader in the O-RAN Alliance

Ericsson’s contribution
to the O-RAN Alliance

Ericsson’s focus areas in the O-RAN Alliance are network
automation within SMO, including orchestration, RAN OAM,
Non-RT-RIC, and rApps, as well as network internal interfaces(especially LLS and enhancements to it), and security.
On network automation, Ericsson is focusing on service
management and orchestration and the ability to create openrApps. Ericsson believes that the rApp domain has enormous
potential for openness and innovation. One of the most exciting
things about the SMO/Non-RT-RIC/rApp domain is theopportunitiy for co-creation within the industry. To enable a
new development ecosystem for rApps, Ericsson is also offeringdevelopers resources like software development kits (SDKs),guides, sample rApps and test resources.
Ericsson holds co-chair positions in WG2 (which covers non-RT RIC
and the A1 and R1 interfaces), WG5 (which covers interoperable
profiles for 3GPP interfaces) and WG11 (which covers securityaspects). In addition, Ericsson was elected to a co-chair positionon the Technical Oversight Committee of the Next Generation
Research Group (nGRG), but later had to vacate this position due tothe limit of chair positions per contributor company.
All these chair positions are evidence of Ericsson’s exceptional
commitment to supporting standardization organizations byappointing volunteers to official positions. Only 12 vendors out of
the total 262 O-RAN Alliance contributors have any working groupco-chair positions and only one vendor in addition to Ericsson has
three working group co-chair positions.
Normally technical contributions in O-RAN Alliance are identified
by the authoring company through unique two-three letter

company identifiers in the file name. For example, the filenamesfor Ericsson’s contributions follow ERI-filename.ext pattern. Thisapproach is quite reliable for contributions from 2021 onwards,
but it misses second contributors when there are multiple authors,
as they are simply documented by adding AO after the company
identifier, for instance, ERI-AO-filename.ext.
We have also filtered out obviously non-technical contributions,such as agendas, meeting minutes, and participant lists, as wellas contributions produced in an official capacity (for example,chairman and rapporteur documents) and have also filtered out
duplicate contributions created by e.g. cloning a page.
As shown in Figure 2, Ericsson contributed more than 18% of thetotal technical contributions to O-RAN Alliance during 2023. Thisis more than any other company, and only one company other thanEricsson contributed more than 10%.
The breakdown of Ericsson’s contribution to different O-RAN
Alliance working groups is shown in Figure 3. In general, Ericssonis active in most of the working groups (with WG3 being the mainexception). In fact, Ericsson has contributed more than any othercompany in a number of working groups, e.g. WG2 (NonRT RIC)
and WG1 (Use cases and architecture), more than 25% of thecontributions are from Ericsson.
Ericsson is also active in securing that O-RAN Allliancespecification are published in different regions. For example, sevenspecifications with Ericsson rapporteurs have been published asETSI specifications using the ETSI Publicly Available Specification(PAS) process.

Share of technical contributions in O-RAN Alliance in 2023
20%
18%
16%
14%
12%
10%8%
6%4%2%0%

Ericsson

Nokia

ChinaMobile

Qualcomm DocomoNECRakutenMobile

Mavenir

Fujitsu

Juniper

Figure 2: Leading companies based on number of technical contributions to O-RAN Alliance in 2023.

6Ericsson | Ericsson - A leader in the O-RAN Alliance

Ericsson share of technical contributions in selected O-RAN Alliance working groups in 2023
30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%0%
WG2 - NonRTRIC

WG1 - Use Casesand Architecture

WG10 O&M WG

WG6 WG5 - OpenWG4 - O-RAN LLS
Cloudiﬁcation and F1/W1/E1/X2/XnOrchestration

WG11 - Security

Figure 3: Ericsson’s share of technical contributions in selected O-RAN Alliance working groups during 2023.

O-RAN Software Community(OSC) leadership
In addition to traditional standardization contributions, the O-RAN
Alliance has associated open source projects hosted in the O-RAN
Software Community (OSC). The O-RAN Software Community(OSC) is a collaboration between the O-RAN Alliance and the LinuxFoundation with the mission to support and simplify the creation ofsoftware for the radio access network (RAN). OSC is sponsored by
the O-RAN Alliance and is under the Linux Foundation. The O-RAN
Software Community is focused on aligning with the O-RAN
Alliance’s open architecture and specifications to provide solutions
that can be utilized for industry deployment. Initial focus

areas for the OSC are non-RT RIC, near-RT RIC, cloudification andvirtualization platforms, open central unit (O-CU), open distributedunit (O-DU), and a test and integration effort to provide a working
reference prototype.
One of the most commonly used technical metrics on open source
projects is the number of commits. During 2023, Ericsson’s shareof commits in the OSC has been more than 28%, which exceeds allother companies by a substantial margin. In fact, Ericsson has been
the largest contributor to OSC since 2021.

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Ericsson | Ericsson - A leader in the O-RAN Alliance

Summary

In this document, we have evaluated Ericsson’s contribution to the O-RAN Alliance and the O-RAN
Alliance Open Source Community (OSC). O-RAN Alliance is a key forum, which is building on thefoundation set by 3GPP in RAN automation, cloudification, and disaggregation.

To conclude, some of the key points are:
• Ericsson is the largest contributor to the O-RAN Alliance with morethan 18% of the total technical contributions.
• Ericsson holds co-chair positions in WG2, WG5 and WG11. Only one
other contributor holds three working group chair positions in theO-RAN Alliance.
• Ericsson also has the highest number of commits to the O-RAN
Software Community, more than 28%.

8Ericsson | Ericsson - A leader in the O-RAN Alliance

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