Most "5G RAN" courses stop at a block diagram and a list of acronyms. This one keeps going — into why the gNodeB was split into CU, DU and RU, what actually rides each interface, and what every protocol layer does to your packet, byte by byte.
Four animated, narrated chapters · a 57-diagram theory book · a 100-question exam. Built straight from the 3GPP 38-series, not from a vendor slide deck.
I got tired of "5G RAN" material that draws three boxes — CU, DU, RU — slaps interface names on the arrows, and moves on. That tells you the what and none of the why. Why split there and not somewhere else? Why is the fronthaul so brutal that it dictates the whole transport design? What does PDCP actually do to a packet, and why did reordering move out of RLC in NR?
So this course is built backwards from the problems. We start with why the radio is hard — shared, finite, fading, mobile — and let every feature in the stack fall out of one of those. Then we take the gNodeB apart, wire it to the service-based core, and walk the protocol stack down to the bit field. Every claim is tied to the spec that backs it, so you can cite it in a design review the next morning.
It's the course I wish I'd had when I was staring at a NG-AP trace at 2am trying to remember which node terminates N2.
Chapter 1 and the theory book are free — start there. The rest unlocks with enrollment.
A short, cinematic story to set the stage: the four blocks of a mobile network, why the air is the hard part, cells & handover, and how the base station became the gNodeB.
Five lessons on disaggregation: LTE→5G, the CU/DU/RU split and why it lands where it does, functional splits (Option 2 & 7-2x), the fronthaul timing nightmare, and NSA vs SA.
Five lessons wiring the radio to the core: NG-RAN and its three directions, the 5G Core network functions, the service-based architecture and the NRF, reference points, and slicing.
Fourteen lessons, every layer to IE level — SDAP, PDCP (×2), RLC (×2), MAC (×6), RRC (×3): security, ordering, ARQ, the scheduler, HARQ, RACH and DRX. This is the heart of the course.
The book behind the videos: ~9,000 words with 57 hand-drawn blue-and-white diagrams, deep-dive boxes and spec citations. Free to read — it's how I'd want a colleague to learn this.
A hundred MCQs across all four chapters with instant feedback and explanations — the honest test of whether it stuck. Full, shuffle, quick-20 or per-chapter.
If you work near the radio — RF, RAN, integration, a core engineer who wants the RAN side, or a fresher trying to get past memorising acronyms — yes. If you've never seen a cellular network at all, start with Chapter 1 (it's free) and see how it feels.
Chapter 1 (the full cinematic intro) and the entire theory book are free — no login, no card. That's a real slice of the course, not a trailer. Chapters 2–4 and the exam unlock when you enroll.
Lifetime access to all four narrated chapters (25 lessons), the 57-diagram theory book, and the 100-question exam — plus every future update, free. One payment, no subscription.
30-day money-back, no questions. If it didn't teach you something you didn't know, email us and we'll refund it.
It's built from the 3GPP 38-series and 23.501, and every non-obvious claim names the governing TS. Where the spec distinguishes a TR (study) from a TS (normative), so do we.
Made by the CafeTele team. We build telecom courses for working engineers — the kind we wanted ourselves: spec-accurate, visual, and honest about the hard parts. If something here is wrong or unclear, tell us; we fix it and you get the update for free.