Radio Virtualization Potential Reaches US$20 Billion by 2020 as VRAN Deployments Take the Fast Lane on the Road to 5G

​vRAN is gaining increasing acceptance as MNOs and vendors that are able to build on C-RAN (Centralized or Cloud RAN architectures and evolve to vRAN will stand to benefit. Segments of the market which have been deploying C-RAN architectures for some time now are among the first to virtualize the RAN.

RAN Virtualization leverages SDN / NFV to virtualize a portion of the RAN onto standard IT or COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) hardware in a central location or in the cloud, and offers advantages such as smaller footprint and reductions in energy consumption, the elimination of overprovisioning, TCO savings, improvements in QoE, scalability, advanced feature support thanks to improvements in baseband coordination, and forward compatibility with future 5G networks.

“Network virtualization is one of the ways an MNO can respond to the exploding growth in data traffic and the proliferation of wireless connections to subscribers and Internet of Things devices,” says Nick Marshall, Research Director at ABI Research. “vRAN densifies a network to meet these challenges while lowering TCO and improving performance.”

One of ABI Research’s Top Five Technology Disruptors, vRAN is emerging as an important technique allowing operators to meet the demands of their networks today and to prepare them for future evolution to 5G.

vRAN pioneers such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cobham Wireless, Corning, Dali Wireless, Ericsson, Freescale, Intel, JMA Wireless, NEC, Nokia Networks, TE Connectivity, and Zinwave can be foundamong the 42 companies profiled in this research.

These findings are from our latest reports: NFV: Radio Virtualization in the RAN and The C-RAN / VRAN Ecosystem. Both are part of ABI Research’s Small Cells & HetNets Market Research.

ABI Research provides technology market research and technology intelligence for industry innovators. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 70+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.