Indosat Ooredoo, Smartfren, Telkomsel and XL Axiata took part in the Open RAN [radio access network] Community Lab trial run by the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), a pan-industry organisation led by Facebook.
The project uses software from Parallel Wireless that can power open RAN services for rural and urban networks, said the US company.
Parallel Wireless COO Keith Johnson said: “The telecom industry is demanding networks that are open and flexible in order to reduce deployment and maintenance cost.”
TIP’s executive director Attilio Zani (pictured) said: “The TIP Community Lab in Indonesia exemplifies TIP’s collaborative approach. It brings together a range of industry leading companies and organisations, like Parallel Wireless, alongside policy makers and universities to accelerate the development of new disaggregated, interoperable, and standards-based solutions that will benefit all stakeholders.”
Amdocs is providing system integration expertise, said Parallel Wireless.
Johnson added: “We are pleased to be working with TIP to enable an open ecosystem of disaggregated RAN solutions based on open interfaces and O-RAN standards and to be the first open RAN vendor to power the TIP Community Lab in Indonesia with open RAN for leading mobile operators in the region.”
Parallel Wireless noted that mobile phones are the main tool used to access the internet in Indonesia. Because of cost, mobile operators in the country are looking for cheaper ways to run their networks.
The see open RAN as a way to commoditise the hardware, said Parallel Wireless, open up RAN interfaces to avoid vendor lock-in, mix and match software and hardware, and implement software functionalities to deliver network reliability and quality of experience at much lower deployment cost.
Last month four European mobile groups, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone, said they were joining forces to promote the roll-out of open-RAN mobile technology.
