VMware’s current playbook for wireless infrastructure is purely software focused but that might change as the company eyes broader opportunities in radio access networks (RAN).

“We’re a pretty acquisitive company and so we are always looking for partners as the overall architecture disintermediates,” Sanjay Uppal, SVP and GM of VMware’s recently formed Service Provider and Edge Business Unit, told SDxCentral.

Uppal declined to share specifics on potential acquisition targets, but noted “we think that there’s a much bigger opportunity” in RAN innovation, hastening the commercial delivery of new features, and allowing enterprises to benefit from those advancements.

“As wireless is getting built out with 5G, the infrastructure is getting disaggregated,” and those activities are advancing through virtualization at the container and virtual machine level, he explained. Virtualized RAN (vRAN) is one of the building blocks to achieve broader virtualization as the industry moves toward the end goal of open RAN, which effectively pairs vRAN with open interfaces, Uppal added. 

“We’re at the beginning stages of a multi-year disaggregation that is happening, and it’s really exciting to see because tens of billions of dollars of economic value are going to get created with this disaggregation and VMware has a critical role to play,” he said.

That value will be captured by new entrants and RAN incumbents that embrace disaggregation, Uppal said, adding that RAN incumbents have to decide: “Are they going to disaggregate with it, or are they going to get disaggregated?” he said.

In the RAN space today, VMware provides the “building blocks that are software based, that sit underneath the application but are above the hardware,” he said. These structural changes in the RAN are also guiding the sequence with which VMware intends to assemble those, and potentially other, building blocks based on its understanding of what enterprises and network operators want.

“That informs what kind of building block we would prioritize first when the 5G RAN is disaggregated,” Uppal said, calling out the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) as a key building block or RAN function of heightened interest. “Right now RAN is at a place where disintermediation is going to drive innovation within each building block.”

The converged, monolithic RAN architecture that dominates the wireless market today, with centralized units, distributed units, radios, and software all coming from one source with proprietary ASICs all bolted together, has had a long run, but it’s days are numbered, according to Uppal. “Pretty much, we’re calling it — that’s the end of it for now,” he said. 

VMware’s ravenous appetite for smaller companies was abundant throughout 2020, but only one of its major deals was for a telco-centric company. That could change if 5G RAN disintermediation continues in stride with VMware’s vision, including areas that haven’t been a focal point for the company thus far.

Open RAN hardware vendors like Mavenir or Parallel Wireless might be on VMware’s radar, especially if it sees a broader market opportunity to couple its expertise in virtualization and cloud-native technology with open RAN hardware and specialized software for open RAN operators.

“Disaggregation and disintermediation through virtualization, both with VMs and containers, is something that we have seen before. We did it first in the servers, then we did it in the network in the data center, then we did it with SD-WAN, and now we're doing it at the edge with this new business unit,” Uppal said, describing this as the “fourth phase of overall disaggregation.”

There are also characteristics of the RAN market that make virtualization unique, he added. Latency requirements and scalability that allows software to be run in a highly distributed fashion with automation are both critical. Providing completely remote management with low latency and highly resilient and reliable computing “kind of pushes the envelope” of RAN virtualization “but we think we’re pretty prepared for it and the industry is ready to march into this new world as well,” Uppal said.

Splitting up the RAN into more parts will play out over many years, and as those activities advance there will be additional opportunities for companies like VMware to further disintermediate the building blocks that comprise RAN today, he explained. There is, for example, growing discussions about the notion of a control plane centralized unit and a data plane centralized unit, he said.

“This disaggregation will drive innovation and you will get these pieces put together, but then you might find specific areas in the future” that are ripe for further development, Uppal said. “In the RAN space in particular, the time has come to disaggregate along the lines that the O-RAN Alliance has been putting in their framework.”