In previous blogs in this “Who Disaggregated My RAN? series, we have looked at the benefits of a disaggregated Open RAN, including the growth of an ecosystem to support the deployment of an Open RAN. We have also looked at how these disaggregated solutions compare in terms of performance. Naturally, as we consider the benefits of using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware for Open RAN solutions, the next logical cost savings option comes in the area of virtualization. Here the term virtualization is used to mean a VNF (Virtualized Network Function) or a CNF (Cloud-native Network Function). What are these VNFs and CNFs anyways? Let’s dig into this topic further.
