The deployment will initially focus on the 2,500 sites in the UK that has committed to Open RAN last year
Vodafone is planning to launch Open RAN in other countries within both Europe and Africa. (Credit: MaxwellFury from Pixabay)
British telecom company Vodafone has selected partners to jointly deploy the first commercial Open Radio Access Network (RAN) in Europe.
The partners include Dell, NEC, Samsung Electronics, Wind River, Capgemini Engineering and Keysight Technologies.
Initially, the deployment will focus on the 2,500 sites in the UK, which has committed to Open RAN in October last year. The installation will be carried out jointly with Dell, NEC, Samsung and Wind River.
Working with Vodafone, the vendors are expected to extend 4G and 5G coverage to more rural places across the South West of England and most of Wales this year.
In the later phase, the companies will extend the coverage to urban areas.
The deployment is expected to see the usage of new radio equipment defined under the Evenstar programme.
Samsung will serve as a reference RAN software provider for the delivery of an open and disaggregated network in the UK. Along with NEC, Samsung will also provide Massive MIMO, which is a method to strengthen the capacity of a mobile antenna.
Vodafone chief technology officer Johan Wibergh said: “Open RAN provides huge advantages for customers.
“Our network will become highly programmable and automated meaning we can release new features simultaneously across multiple sites, add or direct capacity more quickly, resolve outages instantly and provide businesses with on-demand connectivity.
“Open RAN is also reinvigorating our industry. It will boost the digital economy by stimulating greater tech innovation from a wider pool of vendors, bringing much-needed diversity to the supply chain.”
To support the combined DU/CU function running Containers as a Service (CaaS) software from Wind River Studio, the initial deployments will be made using common off the shelf (COTS) Dell EMC PowerEdge servers.
Capgemini Engineering and Keysight Technologies will provide the support required to ensure interoperability between all the components.
Keysight Technologies will provide its Open RAN test solution portfolio that is designed to support conformance, interoperability and E2E system testing.
Capgemini Engineering will serve as the key partner within Vodafone’s lab testing to ensure the interworking of the Open RAN multi-vendor ecosystem.
Vodafone is planning to launch Open RAN in other countries within Europe and Africa.