11534 search results for Open RAN

Saudi Arabia’s stc deployed a multilayer network, combining 4G and 5G Non-Standalone, on an Open RAN platform.    The network uses three-way carrier aggregation for 4G – in bands B1 (2.1 GHz), B2 (1.9 GHz) and B28 (700 MHz) – plus 5G NSA in a fourth band, 3.5 GHz, running as a virtualized Single RAN. The deployment conforms to Open RAN specifications and interfaces, combining a cloud-native baseband platform from Mavenir with third party radio units.    Bader Abdullah Allhieb, VP of infrastructure at the operator, said: “Technological transformation is a keystone of stc’s business strategy and 5G is an exciting milestone in stc’s Open RAN journey. stc will continue to endeavour to always lead the market towards digital transformation,…

Europe’s largest independent towerco, Cellnex, has been expanding its business model into active networks (via its Polish acquisitions), small cells and private enterprise services. Its latest plan is to become an “edgeco”, following US counterparts such as Crown Castle into developing neutral host services for cloud infrastructure.     These small, localized data centers could be offered to enterprises or even hyperscalers to support services that require a very distributed cloud, but the first port of call is likely to be operators. That would enable Cellnex to offer a widened range of infrastructure to its established customer base, and tap into nascent deployments of virtualized RANs, which will require edge cloud to support distributed units close to the cell site.   …

 Qualcomm Technologies continues to expand its portfolio and its business model, as it seeks to reduce its dependence on smartphone chips and address a far broader set of technologies in the telecoms market. Its latest acquisition is of Israel-based Cellwize, a developer of self-optimizing network (SON) and Open RAN automation software. Financial details were not revealed though several sources point to a figure around $300m to $350m – Cellwize had raised about $56m to date.    This may seem, at first glance, an odd purchase for a chip giant, but it does fit with one of Qualcomm’s most strategic ambitions, to re-enter the RAN infrastructure market – which it exited in 1999 when it sold its base station chips to…

The UK government has published a detailed report outlining how Apple and Google exploit their combined stranglehold on the global mobile ecosystem outside China, but seems unclear what action to take as a result. Indeed, it seems intent on finding a compromise rather than instigating direct antitrust action.     Compiled by the country’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the report accused both companies of actively limiting competition in their respective markets to the detriment of their customers and is following up with market investigation into Apple in July, as well as some unspecified action against Google.     “Apple and Google hold all the cards. As good as many of their services and products are, their strong grip on mobile ecosystems allows…

As with most radical new platforms that have emerged in the IT or telecoms worlds over the years, Open RAN has had its share of grand visions, as well as hype. But like those other platforms, it will only succeed in delivering on its promise if it can be deployable and affordable for a large number of operators. The pioneers are important for showing what can be done, and kickstarting the ecosystem, but the challenge for the mid-2020s is to make Open RAN attractive and realistic for a wider base, especially in the macro network, where its challenges are most obvious.    Deutsche Telekom, as soon as it publicly declared its interest in Open RAN, has taken a pragmatic approach.…

The arm of US sanctions against ZTE and Huawei has failed to reach far into developing economies of the Far East, Africa and Latin America, many of which remain open to competition from all the major mobile equipment makers.     Operators in such countries are attracted by pricing and technology differentiators from ZTE and Huawei, but they can also exploit a higher level of competition than in markets where the two Chinese vendors are effectively banned.    The need for a wide choice of suppliers means that Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung have also been doing well in many developing markets over the past few years. As a result, the global mobile market now falls into three broad zones of competition: …

Special Report: 5G supply chains    We often argue that 5G has, so far, failed to deliver the radical changes in architecture and user experience that will be needed, if it really is to amount to a brand new generation of the mobile business model. Another area where there have been high hopes of radical change is in the value chain, and here too, the signs of near term transformation look poor.    The visions for the 5G era focused on a cloud-native and software-defined architecture that would, in turn, open the door to new suppliers by turning the whole mobile platform, not just the 3GPP radio standards, into an open framework. Recently, the conversation has been mainly about Open…

As new technologies come closer to at-scale deployment, even their supporters inevitably become more cautious, or at least realistic. So Nokia, which embraced Open RAN quickly as a way to outwit Ericsson, has made some surprisingly strong comments about the platform’s failure to reduce cost, while Rakuten Symphony has shifted its focus away from mature markets and operators, and says emerging markets and countries with “adversity” are the best breeding ground for disruptive Open RAN.    Symphony’s CMO Geoff Hollingworth said in a recent interview that Open RAN could help poorer countries bypass legacy architectures and seize technical leadership. He said the company, which will commercialize Rakuten Mobile’s RAN platform, is “heavily invested and interested” in the Middle East and…

While Intel’s Altera and AMD’s Xilinx dominate the market for field programmable gate array (FPGA) chips, a third player, Lattice Semiconductor, has been building up a specialist presence in low-power FPGAs targeted at specific applications, such as IoT and now Open RAN.    The company has unveiled its fifth application-specific FPGA solution stack, aiming for the fashionable Open RAN acceleration segment, where the two larger FPGA vendors have already made a significant play.     Lattice claims its new stack is distinguished by low power consumption on hardware acceleration, robust security for control data, and flexible fronthaul synchronization.    The company particular talks up the security aspects of its stack, since critics of disaggregated RAN architectures argue that these networks will…

Ever since Dish Network started to accumulate mobile spectrum more than a decade ago, the company has said that it would need to share passive infrastructure, and even the active RAN, in order to make the economics work for a nationwide build-out. The situation changed somewhat when Dish acquired Sprint’s Boost division and customers prior to the latter’s merger with T-Mobile USA, and it has gone ahead with its 5G deployment without partners. But it may still be looking for companies to share its RAN, either to reduce costs or to enhance its wholesale-only revenue model.    In a recent presentation at the Big 5G Event show, Dish’s VP of technology development, Sidd Chenumolu, said the company was interested in…