This, Vodafone says, is another step forward in Vodafone and Intel’s long-term research collaboration centred at Vodafone’s innovation centre in Malaga, Spain.
The companies are already working together toward Vodafone’s planned UK commercial deployment of 4th Gen Intel Xeon processors with Intel vRAN Boost in the first half of 2024.
One of the key principles of Open RAN is the disaggregation of the access networks and mobile antennas within open radio (O-RU) domains, which means separating hardware and software to drive innovation.
Santiago Tenorio, Vodafone’s director of network architecture said: “Open RAN has opened the doors to unforeseen benefits through greater disaggregation.
“Vodafone and its partners are now focussed on realising this potential to reduce costs and improve energy savings while enhancing performance for our customers.”
The collaboration between Vodafone and Intel, working alongside the Telecommunication Institute of the University of Malaga, brings together the expertise, capacity and capability needed to conduct research and innovate in this area to advance existing Open RAN architecture and grow the emerging ecosystem.
The initial areas where the three parties will focus their latest R&D include evolving Open RAN architecture and using advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning (ML) to develop ultra-efficient algorithms for 5G massive MIMO.
The resulting algorithms and other innovations generated by this research are then intended to be integrated into test silicon, produced by Intel and used to create new benchmarks for the advancement of silicon needed to drive industrial internet applications.
Santiago Tenorio, Vodafone’s Director of Network Architecture, said: “Open RAN has opened the doors to unforeseen benefits through greater disaggregation. Vodafone and its partners are now focussed on realising this potential to reduce costs and improve energy savings while enhancing performance for our customers.”
“Future radio networks rely on innovations that the industry invests in today,” said Dan Rodriguez, corporate vice president and general manager of the network and edge solutions group at Intel.
“Our work with Vodafone and other companies across the industry on next-gen technologies is critical and helps foster a broad, open ecosystem.”
