Telecom Italia (TIM) has been one of the more active MNOs in trialling virtualized RAN (vRAN) architectures in its macro RAN as a precursor to 5G. It has conducted trials with Ericsson, Huawei Nokia and Altiostar at various points in the past and is now reporting encouraging results on the cost side. Lucy Lombardi, Telecom Italia’s SVP of digital and ecosystem innovation, told the 5G Core Summit in Madrid that TIM had saved up to 50% on software resources by using an architecture in which numerous radio/antenna units could share a centralized baseband processor, with the flexibility increased further by virtualizing the baseband functions. Most of the cost savings came from the ability to allocate network resources dynamically to any…