5G Network Equipment Manufacturers

The 5G equipment market is expected to expand by over 60% annually through 2025¹ . This explosive growth brings both opportunities and challenges for 5G Network Equipment Manufacturers.

Since the first single-vendor wireless networks were deployed over 30 years ago, Network Equipment Manufacturers (NEMs) have enabled ever-higher levels of reliability, security, and performance. 5G is reshaping the landscape as never before, with densification, use case diversity, and disaggregation demanding a multi-vendor approach to network architecture. More recently, the cellular industry has been facing increased cost pressures, and the players need to address the price complexity curve through increased productivity and better use of assets. 

Proactive test practices and standardization, with Cloud as an enabler for better overall productivity - are key to getting to seamless interoperability and quicker time to market.

A shift to the New 5G

Open RAN is an excellent example of the new reality, with lower barriers to entry for NEMs, hence accelerating innovation and competition. Communication Service Providers (CSPs) can now mix and match best-in-class RAN components to optimize for their end-user markets. The participation of over 300 mobile operators and NEMs has allowed the O-RAN Alliance to advance their vision of open and intelligent RAN architecture. But this doesn’t come at zero cost. 

Along with the interoperability challenges, new security concerns are raised. Disaggregation and a diverse vendor landscape give the opportunity for bad actors to attack  the 5G network. Reliance on the Cloud complicates these security concerns, with cybercriminals looking to hijack virtual containers for system entry. Whether NSA, SA or based on O-RAN specifications, you need to ensure that the 5G network components are not just performing at maximum efficiency, but they are also highly secure.

Private 5G networks for smart factories; Edge computing for low latency use cases and IoT will continue to evolve the hardware and the cloud-native, intelligent software. As 5G extends into public, private, and even non-terrestrial networks (NTNs), your opportunities will also continue to expand. With VIAVI you can:

• optimize your development practices 
• enable greater engineering productivity and improve test equipment utilisation
• get better performance and interoperability 
• accelerate time-to-market

Quality begins in the Lab 

Not all new 5G components will be of the space age variety, but they will need to perform flawlessly, both individually and at the system level. A “multi-vendor” playing field means more competition, and the focus shifts to security, quality, productivity and time-to- market. With proactive testing in the Lab, you can achieve all four objectives at the same time, but where do you start? 

What to test. Where to test. When to test.

If quality means satisfied customers, emulation is the key to assuring it from the concept phase throughout the product lifecycle. Whether the 5G component or system is tailored to dense IoT applications, enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) services, niche private 5G networks, or ambitious NTN deployments in orbit, accurately simulating real-world functionality in the lab can get you performance and interoperability at scale, right out of the gate. 

A test platform capable of emulating each Open RAN element, the 5G Core, and thousands of end user devices and applications, results in a 5G network with quality exceeding the sum of its parts. With VIAVI you can emulate diverse 5G conditions and create scalable test beds that operate in the cloud, in private data centers, or on dedicated appliances to give you the flexibility to test what you want, where you want and when you want.

With a cloud-based test solution, you can:

• Run standardized use cases on-demand
• Take advantage of flexible licensing including Bring Your Own Licensing and Software-as-a-Service models as well as value-added services such as Test-as-a-Service and certification/badging of Open RAN components

The VIAVI solution offers shareability, scalability, security to allow our customers to maximize both their engineering productivity and utilization of test assets.

• Explore RANtoCore - realistic test environments for operators

Our strategic test workflows are designed to address IEEE, 3GPP, and O-RAN Alliance requirements yet can also be tailored to the unique use cases and interoperability challenges each product may encounter. This versatility is one reason our test tools are used by virtually every base station manufacturer in the world.

• Check-out our Global O-RAN Plugfest Participation

Secured by Design

Active participation in industry standardization activities is crucial for discovering the component and system vulnerabilities that benefit most from negative testing. Simulated hacking attacks and overload conditions can be induced in the lab to ensure they will be mitigated consistently in the field. 

Next-generation firewalls to screen packet data with minimal latency impact are an effective security tool for 5G cloud deployments. Together with our NGFW partners, including Palo Alto Networks we have developed firewall testing processes and continuous scanning to validate firewall effectiveness. 

• Find out more

Service Teams

In the current RAN Services' competitive landscape there is zero tolerance for faulty networks, as downtime can have a significant impact on service KPIs, revenues and mobile churn rate. With easy to use field test and verification tools - designed and tuned to deliver the performance your network demands - you get increased technician productivity and a great value overall.

• Discover our Installation, Maintenance and Optimization portfolio

What will 6G mean for NEMs?

Although the arrival of 6G is at least a decade away, collaborating with standards bodies, working groups, and innovators affords us a sneak peek into the direction of the industry and the expected impact on NEMs. Development teams will see the bar raised for performance requirements like bandwidth and latency with enhanced security and energy efficiency profiles. We look forward to new and continuing partnerships with you as we address the test, emulation, and validation opportunities that 6G wireless technology will bring.

We are VIAVI

Next generation of proactive test solutions for 5G Network Equipment Manufacturers

TM500 Family 

Functional, system integration, capacity and stress testing in the lab. It can emulate 1000’s of mobile devices, across multiple cells to set-up and test 4G and 5G Base Stations.

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TeraVM

Application emulation and security performance solution, delivering comprehensive test coverage for application services, wired and wireless networks.

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RANtoCore

Complete end-to-end RANtoCore™ testing and validation solution for a complete overview of the network and its performance under the demands of real-world traffic scenarios.

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Test as a Service (TaaS)

Simplify your test process and accelerate 5G and O-RAN Time-to-Market. Demonstrate to your customers you can deliver commercially robust solutions that meet demanding performance criteria.

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Installation, Maintenance, Optimization

Solutions designed to test and verify devices, radio, ad hoc network clusters, RAN, transport, core and services for verticals by delivering visibility for 5G end-to-end programmable and dynamic networks.

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Cision PR Newswire, “5G Network Market 2021-2025”, September, 2021