As the telecom industry stride towards open and virtualized RAN, importance of RIC has tremendously increased. RIC is a cloud native architecture and sits at the heart of open and virtualized RAN network. It customizes RAN functionality by optimization of regional resources and hence enable quick launch of new services. It is very well aligned with O-RAN architecture and optimizes RAN elements via fine-grained data collection and actions over E2 interface. It manages all the RAN resources and triggers near real time action to improve overall network efficiency.
STL has developed the nRT-RIC (Near-real time RAN Intelligent Controller), which is completely aligned with O-RAN specifications and serves as a critical component in enabling open and virtualized RAN. Below are its key functions: