Mavenir has released a 5G operator survey prepared by telecom industry analyst firm Heavy Reading.

94 percent CSPs intended to deploy Cloud RAN as the 5G deployment architecture in their 5G networks either partially or in their entirety.

CSPs are viewing 5G as evolutionary, rather than revolutionary with the 5G strategy to build on advanced 4G.

Mobile operators like open standards as this allows them to take advantage of innovation across the ecosystem. This applies across the RAN and core domains.

“The response from telecom operators indicates that the Cloud RAN architecture will be widely adopted as operators deploy advanced 4G and 5G networks,” Gabriel Brown, principal analyst at Heavy Reading.

Earlier, Ericsson, a telecom equipment maker based in Sweden, predicted that there will be one billion 5G subscriptions in 2023.

The intent of CSPs to deploy SDN to handle the huge number of data-heavy use cases anticipated in the near term. Network-slicing and edge computing platforms built on cloud-based architectures will be instrumental in the success of their 5G build-outs.

“The 5G strategy for these mobile operators is to build on advanced 4G and this evolutionary strategy is precisely why the decisions that are made today will greatly affect the mobile network economics,” said Pardeep Kohli, president and CEO of Mavenir.

Mavenir in a whitepaper said Mavenir’s Cloud RAN deployment enables mobile operators to save 37 percent in deployment and operational costs over a period of 5 years, due to a 49 percent reduction in Capex, and a 31 percent reduction in Opex.

“Virtualization opens new ways to architect, deploy and operate wireless networks including the radio access network (RAN), where Cloud RAN can bring substantial Capex and Opex savings to operators that move baseband processing away from the cell site to a remote location,” said Monica Paolini, president, Senza Fili Consulting.