Ohhhh-klahoma! Where Verizon's sweeping legacy down the drain Verizon's enthusiasm for 5G and virtualization has spawned a virtual radio access network trial in the USA. The network know-how came from Nokia. Intel, always alive to a network architecture that can put once-specialised functions onto lots of generic servers, also took part. Nokia called the “Cloud RAN” trial, in Oklahoma …
Virtual Radio Access Networking.
Most current antennae are connected to a "cell" the cell is a fairly robust bit of hardware, it accepts the initial radio connection, and is responsible for validating the registration (in network HLR) updating location information about the IMEI, handling connection tuning, and pushing packets up the backhaul and out the antennae. In some cases, the registration/location handling information is done at a "switch" a level up the backhaul. This mostly depends on volume and overall coverage range(s). Latency is sometimes an issue when there are many cells hung off a switch - (another decision point)
The idea here is that the antenna/mast cell becomes an idiot box that pushes all this functionality back to a virtual machine in a (datacenter or cloud).
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out which lane the bus is in and what that light down the far end of the tunnel is.
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