The trial is expected to lead to higher levels of service innovation, higher network automation, flexibility and efficient scaling of resources to support end-user services, Nokia said in a release.
The trial took place in an over-the-air environment, using 3.5GHz spectrum for 5G and 2100MHz for 4G.
“This successful trial with our long-term partner, Bharti Airtel supports their ambitions for building scalable, agile and highly automated networks,” said Tommi Uitto, president of mobile networks at Nokia.
“Nokia’s approach to Cloud RAN means that our customers can flexibly evolve to Cloud RAN with choices in Cloud infrastructure and data centre hardware. This will drive efficiency, innovation, openness, and scale in their RAN.”
Data calls were successfully performed with commercial user devices over Airtel’s commercial network achieving a throughput of over 1.2Gbps.
The trial used Nokia’s RAN software for virtualised distributed unit (vDU) and virtualised centralised unit (vCU) running on x86 with a CaaS layer.
The trial also used Nokia’s L1 acceleration, which will enable enhanced power efficiency and support Nokia’s anyRAN benefits of using common RAN software with the purpose-built part of the network.
Nokia said this will enable common functionality and performance across the hybrid network.
Randeep Sekhon, CTO at Bharti Airtel, said: “This successful Cloud RAN trial is a significant step forward in our consistent efforts to integrate the latest and most efficient technologies into our network and leverage these to deliver brilliant customer experiences.
“This partnership with Nokia has enabled us to pioneer innovative solutions to upgrade our capabilities in 5G.”
