Ericsson is starting to see performance results from the use of non-real-time applications (rApps) running on its radio access network (RAN) intelligent controller (RIC), but those results will remain siloed for now.

Lindsay Beall, product marketing director for Ericsson’s Business Area Networks division, explained during the vendor’s recent Networks Quarterly Information Briefing that testing has shown Ericsson’s energy control rApps are producing meaningful energy savings.

Beall explained that the Ericsson RAN Energy Cockpit provides operators with a “tool to visualize easily the energy efficiency of their network into a color-coded map and this is done by using [artificial intelligence] clustering technologies.”

“The tool will be able to execute autonomously a routine to detect this energy efficiency fault and actually to provide resolutions,” Beall said. “So this solution will not only reduce the energy consumption of the network but will also reduce the visits to the site and improve overall network performance.”

Ericsson’s RAN Energy Control takes real-time and historical data to maintain network performance. Beall said this has provided energy saving of up to 25% per radio unit per day.

“These new rApps … are suited for both a cloud RAN network and a purpose-built or integrated RAN network,” she said.

The potential energy savings has been a key component of RIC work as operators look for ways to manage power usage across 5G network equipment from different vendors. An ABI Research report indicated that while 5G equipment can be more power efficient than legacy 4G LTE equipment, network densification will increase the overall power draw.

“Despite 5G consuming less power than 4G per unit of traffic, the overall energy consumption is still much higher, driven by more power-thirsty radios and network densification,” ABI Research analyst Fei Liu wrote in the report. Liu added that whereas 5G infrastructure can be 90% more energy efficient than 4G LTE on a per bit basis, a typical 5G base station also requires three-times more energy to provide the same coverage as a 4G LTE network.

“5G energy consumption depends on radio configuration, hardware and traffic load, and over 70% of the consumed energy is in the [RAN]. A 5G RAN consumes up to 2.7 kilowatts of power with [64-transmit/64-receive] massive [multiple-input/multiple-output] configurations in a typical condition, whereas an LTE radio consumes about 0.8 kilowatts,” she wrote.

Ericsson made its big RIC push in late 2021 with the launch of its Intelligent Automation Platform. This platform included rApps to provide non-real-time control over open RAN environments.

However, Brian Arendse, industry analyst relations manager for Ericsson, explained during the recent vendor briefing that the rApps Ericsson is developing are “for our own RAN. We will develop capability and compatibility with other [open] RAN networks on a case-by-case basis, as would be needed by our customers.”

This highlights Ericsson’s ongoing participation in the open RAN community. Gartner recently labeled Ericsson as the leading 5G network infrastructure vendor, but questioned its cloud work.

“Although Ericsson launched its Cloud RAN (vRAN) portfolio in 2020 and enhanced it in 2021, its priorities are incumbent 4G/5G [communication service provider] clients and the interoperability assurance with its own purpose-built [baseband unit] by Ericsson Cloud Link,” Gartner noted in the Magic Quadrant report. “Ericsson’s approach to open RAN fronthaul multivendor integration is conservative and is based on Ericsson’s perception of the market and technology both being at a low level of readiness.”

One RAN area Ericsson has increased its focus on is developing silicon and servers to better support 5G network and edge deployments. The vendor recently struck deals with Dell Technologies and AMD to boost those cloud RAN efforts.

The Dell deal brings the server giant into Ericsson’s ecosystem with its recently launched PowerEdge XR8000 and XR5610 servers now available as part of Ericsson’s Cloud RAN offering. Those servers use Intel’s latest 4th Gen Xeon Scalable processors and a smaller footprint than traditional servers that can better fit into edge or space-constrained environments. They can also tap into Intel’s virtualized RAN (vRAN) Boost system to eliminate the need for an external accelerator card, which can reduce compute and resource needs for edge environments.

The AMD agreement is a collaboration to bring AMD’s EPYC processors and T2 Telco accelerator into Ericsson’s Cloud RAN offering.

“I think this is really starting to show our continued commitment to deliver flexibility and really embrace the larger open RAN and cloud RAN ecosystem,” Beall said of those deals. “I think it also speaks to our focus on software portability and our focus on how the x86 and selected function hardware acceleration really enables supplier diversification both on the technology side like with AMD and also on the server and hardware side with Dell.”