(
Virtual 
Radio 
Access 
Network)  Operating cellular base stations in a virtualized environment on commodity hardware.  vRAN is a type of NFV (network functions virtualization) in which services run in virtual machines (VMs) on standard servers rather than hardware dedicated to specific applications, in this case a cellular base station.  vRAN 5G is the deployment of vRAN processes for efficient deployment of 5G antennas.  See 
RAN and 
NFV.