ETSI CTO: Moving the needle on 5G standalone and open RAN

2/28/2023

MWC23 – ETSI CTO Adrian Scrase appreciates that the telecom industry is planning ahead for 6G but said there's still much work to be done in supporting 5G deployments and moving the needle on 5G standalone networks.

"It's a good thing to get this [6G research] on the table early," said Scrase. He added that the industry is planning to start deploying 6G by 2028 or 2030.

"There are some 250 networks live now on 5G but most of those are working in non-standalone mode... we have a long way to go with 5G but taking into account this long-tail research need it's probably great we get the 6G discussion on the table now."

Scrase also discussed challenges the industry faces in moving forward with open RAN, and ensuring that the technology "works, sells, is affordable and doesn't use too much energy."

Here are a few topics we covered:

Software Development Groups – including software components in standards (00:32)
ETSI's partnership with O-RAN Alliance on open RAN specifications (1:41)
ETSI's work on multi-access edge computing (MEC) (3:13)
Mobile industry moves ahead with planning for 6G (3:53)
When there will be more momentum around 5G standalone (6:33)
Trends at MWC: private networks, non-terrestrial networks and sustainability (8:09)

— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Senior Editor, Light Reading

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