vRAN (Virtualized RAN)
RAN-software körs på commodity-server-hardware (x86) istället för proprietary-baseband-units. Cloud-native, container-based. Subset of Open RAN-rörelsen. Standard 2024+ för greenfield-mobile-deployments.
Rakuten Mobile (Japan, 2020): first all-vRAN national network. Hardware: Intel Xeon Scalable + accelerators (Intel ACC-100, Marvell OCTEON). vRAN-vendors: Mavenir, Parallel Wireless, NEC, Samsung. Performance challenge: real-time signal-processing on commodity-hardware kräver tight optimization, hardware-accelerators (FEC, channel-coding). Modern: AWS + Microsoft Azure har private-5G + vRAN-managed-services. Cost-benefit: lower CapEx (commodity hardware), higher OpEx (more management), unclear net-savings.