Declaring the place as its “O-RAN Town”, the company said that it has built a multi-vendor open RAN network that will deliver 4G and 5G services across up to 25 sites.
Claudia Nemat, board member for technology and innovation, said: “Open RAN is about increasing flexibility, choice and reinvigorating our industry to bring in innovation for the benefit our customers.”
The first live sites in Neubrandenburg (pictured) use multi-vendor open RAN architecture with equipment from vendor partners Dell, Fujitsu, Intel, Mavenir, NEC and Supermicro, said the operator.
“This is just the start,” said Nemat. “We will expand O-RAN Town over time with a diverse set of supplier partners to further develop our operational experience of high-performance multi-vendor open RAN.”
The installation will feature massive MIMO — multiple input, multiple output (mMIMO), a way of combining many beams to increase bandwidth.
Mavenir jumped in with a comment. CEO Pardeep Kohli said: “Together with our partners, we are excited to showcase how open interfaces and cloud-native technologies accelerate innovation in RAN infrastructure areas such as mMIMO.”
Nemat said: “Switching on our O-RAN Town including massive MIMO is a pivotal moment on our journey to drive the development of open RAN as a competitive solution for macro deployment at scale.”
She added: “As a vibrant and competitive open RAN ecosystem emerges, we will benefit from the flexibility to select and integrate vendor components with features that best fit our needs and the needs of our customers.”
