Intel Lays Foundation for DISH's 5G virtualized, O-RAN network

Intel technology delivers foundation for DISH's 5G virtualized, O-RAN compliant network, driving increased flexibility and agility.

DISH and Intel have announced a partnership to integrate Intel 5G infrastructure technology into DISH's buildout of the nation's first virtualized, open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) 5G network deployment.

DISH has selected the Intel Xeon Scalable Processor, the Intel Ethernet 800 Series network adapter, the Intel vRAN Dedicated Accelerator ACC100 and Intel's FlexRAN software reference architecture for its deployments.

With a greenfield 5G network that is being architected from the ground up, DISH is working with several U.S.-based vendors to combine cloud and connectivity technology to power next-generation services and enterprise use cases.

As the world's leading network silicon provider, Intel brings a full suite of silicon, software and tools to transform the network with a software-defined, agile and scalable infrastructure. Through close collaboration with Intel, DISH is able to consolidate and optimize multiple workloads at locations across its network for increased efficiency.

"Intel has been a trusted advisor throughout the design of our O-RAN network, working in concert with our software vendors Mavenir, Altiostar, and many OEM hardware providers. We have tested several commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) designs from a large number of server vendors using Intel's O-RAN compliant FlexRAN architecture and are pleased by the maturity and power of the solutions, together with the cost benefits of COTS solutions," said Marc Rouanne, executive vice president and chief network officer, DISH. "We are using the power of the VMware abstraction solution and the ubiquity of Intel-based servers to load and mix different types of cloud-native workloads like distributed unit (DU), centralized unit (CU), virtual routers, mobile edge computing applications, and 5G Core containerized network functions."

"Fully-virtualized, cloud-native networks like the one DISH is building bring the same server economics that transformed the data center," said Dan Rodriguez, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the Network Platforms Group. "We are excited to partner with DISH to lay the foundation for a truly agile network and have already begun working with our OEM partners who have designed FlexRAN-based servers to enable a variety of new innovative use cases and services."

DISH and Intel are working together on the fully virtualized RAN, including radio reference designs, fronthaul optimization, hardware-based security, and blueprints for servers. The two companies are also collaborating to enable edge applications for enterprises and driving O-RAN standards, and are cooperating in the areas of data optimization and Machine Learning for future phases of the network buildout.