HFR’s my5G solution implements vRAN and O-RAN to significantly reduce the building/operation cost of a Private 5G network.

4G C-RAN consists of RRH and BBU, and the two are connected using a proprietary fronthaul interface (CPRI). RRH and BBU were also developed as proprietary H/W and S/W. As a result, RRH and BBU from different vendors are not interoperable, so a small number of RAN vendors monopolize the expensive RAN market.

In order to reduce the high front-hole cost of the RRH and BBU architecture, 5G RAN subdivides the RAN functions into RU, DU, and CU and performs some PHY functions executed by the BBU to the RU. In 5G era, mmWave and Massive MIMO are adopted to provide 10 times more BW than 4G. That is, RAN equipment has mass-capacity and is high-priced. Therefore, when building 5G RAN, using proprietary equipment and connecting between RU and DU with a proprietary interface, as in 4G RAN, the cost of building 5G network increases sharply.

HFR's 5G RAN virtualizes DUs and CUs, uses standard COTS servers for H/W, and virtualized NFs (DUs, CUs) are installed in containers on COTS servers to reduce building and operation costs and enabling capacity expansion quick and easy compared to dedicated equipment (vRAN). In addition, HFR's RU and DU implement the O-RAN 7.2x specification standardized in O-RAN alliance in 2019 to interwork with RU and DU of other vendors, overcoming the existing RAN vendor lock problem and enabling fast and inexpensive building of 5G RAN (O-RAN).