Open-Source 5G Ran Platforms: A Dual Perspective on Performance and Capabilities

I spent 10 years working with radio access networks (RAN), first in WCDMA (3G) then LTE (4G), then 5G. Our systems were also software defined radio (SDR), but, and this is crucial (and the paper points to this), the SDR as "malleable" as it is, is still highly dependent on the underlying hardware to achieve good performance.

Also, we spent huge amount of time making sure uplink performance is top-notch, as is the general stability and determinism, i.e. jitter and tail latency. In the paper they show that OAI is quite unstable, and they only achieve 5-49% of theoretical uplink capacity.

Also note this is a tiny setup, single server, four simultaneous UEs (phones). The systems I worked with handled 20 000 phones per second, with quality guarantees, in environments like central Tokyo and midtown Manhattan.

So great for independent research, but unfortunately, still very much bound to small end research.

Note that this is about RAN (Radio Access Network) platforms, not the past tense of the verb "to run".