Let’s say you run a farm
“Let’s say you run a farm, a hospital, a smart factory or an academic campus and that you want or need 5G connectivity for it.” started the post I’ve published 7 months ago. Back then we proudly announced releasing Terraform modules deploying Charmed Aether SD-Core - a cost-effective and easy-to-use 5G Core solution. While this was a huge step towards reducing the technical expertise required to run a private 5G mobile network and therefore making it easily accessible for anyone interested in this kind of setup, it only covered half of the story - the Core part of the network.
“What about the other half? The Access part?” someone could ask and that would be a fair question. 7 months ago we didn’t have the answer; the story was incomplete.
Is all the required software available yet?
The high-level architecture of mobile networks hasn’t changed much since the early 1980s when the 1G (1st Generation) mobile network was introduced. Regardless of the generation of the mobile network, there are always two essential parts required to provide a network service - the core network and the radio access network (RAN). The core network is responsible for defining and managing the network services while RAN allows users to connect to the network.
With Charmed Aether SD-Core covering the first part, we spent the last 6 months working on providing access to it. As a result, Charmed OAI RAN has been created.
Following the same principles as Charmed Aether SD-Core, Charmed OAI RAN is a user-friendly and cost-effective distribution of the 5G Radio Access Network based on the Open Air Interface Software Alliance’s RAN solution. Charmed OAI RAN leverages all features of Canonical’s Juju orchestration framework and is available for deployment through the Terraform modules.
Charmed Aether SD-Core and Charmed OAI RAN are designed to provide a seamless and consistent experience of running a private 5G mobile network all the way across Day 1 and Day 2 activities.
And from the software perspective that’s all you need for your farm.
Easy-peasy, but does it actually work?
Half a year ago, we accepted a challenge to show a working 5G private mobile network at the 2024 Ubuntu Summit in The Hague. We did it having only the Core part covered and a vague idea of how we are going to get the rest of the setup ready.
Over 6 months, we developed Canonical’s first RAN distribution, designed a complete setup for running the private 5G network, arranged the required hardware, acquired permission to use the radio frequency from the Dutch government, integrated everything into a single, consistent solution and…
No engineers were harmed in the making of this setup 
So what do I need to run 5G on my farm?
Let’s take a closer look at what’s under the hood.
Network diagram
Who would have thought that the 5G mobile network can be that simple? A bunch of servers to host the network functions, a Radio Unit with an antenna to provide over-the-air interface for the User Equipment, a switch to manage the network, a router for the main network traffic and we’re all set.
Well, that’s actually the complicated setup. We’re already working on getting everything running on a single host!
OK, let’s finally get connected.
The actual setup
The entire demonstration setup is managed from a single host - the Juju Host. It holds the Juju controller, manages models for the User Plane, Control Plane and the RAN, allows accessing the graphical Network Management System (NMS) and provides observability features by hosting the Canonical Observability Stack (COS).
Charmed Aether SD-Core has been deployed with Control Plane and User Plane Separation (CUPS).
Charmed OAI RAN has been deployed using the Functional (F1) Split, which breaks the gNodeB’s internal structure into the Central Unit (CU) and the Distributed Unit (DU).
What about the performance?
Everything looks great so far - blinking lights and cables always attract the eye, the monitor displays a nice GUI, but at the end of the day, all that matters is definitely not the looks. So how does this thing perform? Is it actually usable?
Let’s start with building a context for the results.
- We built a simple setup based on a couple of miniPCs equipped with Intel Core i5 1240P mobile CPUs.
- We used a simple Software Defined Radio (SDR) which everyone can buy.
- We were allowed to use radio band n77 with a bandwidth up to 50 MHz (practically 40 MHz due to SDR’s limitations).
- We used a really cheap SISO antenna (MIMO antennas were out of stock).
- It was the first time we ran this setup.
So, without further ado, let’s see the photo everyone was waiting for:
Over 80 Mbps in downlink 
That’s over 10 MB/s. Not bad for a cheap and simple setup, if you ask me. It’s actually more than enough to watch 4K videos at 60 fps without any buffering!
OK, it does work. So what now?
Paraphrasing one popular commercial slogan, Charmed Aether SD-Core and Charmed OAI RAN offer “probably the best Open Source private 5G mobile network distribution in the world” Does this mean our work is done? Definitely not. We are just starting. There’s still plenty to do, but we will get there.
If you got that far, you must be really interested in private mobile networking. If that’s the case, we strongly encourage you to explore our solution. In the documentation, you will find some easy-to-follow tutorials for both Charmed Aether SD-Core and Charmed OAI RAN, which will guide you through the experience of building your own private 5G mobile network. And don’t worry - you don’t need the RF license nor the real Radio Unit. We got you covered with a set of simulators.
Once you’re done, please make sure to share your feedback with us. We will appreciate anything that helps us improve our solution for the future.
You can chat with us on Matrix or create an issue on GitHub (Charmed Aether SD-Core or Charmed OAI RAN) directly.
Good luck!