Mavenir, HCL Partner on Integration, Delivery of O-RAN Radios

Mavenir, the Network Software Provider building the future of networks with cloud-native software that runs on any cloud and transforms the way the world connects, has announced a strategic partnership with HCL Technologies (HCL), a global technology company with expertise in network systems testing.

This partnership helps accelerate the market availability of O-RAN split 7.2 compliant Remote Radiohead Units (RRUs) while establishing a business model to meet the growing demand and evolving requirements for O-RAN RRUs.

Today’s RRU ecosystem has expanded to offer Communication Service Providers (CSPs) a significantly wider choice of 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, massive MIMO (mMIMO), millimeter Wave (mmWave), small cell and indoor radios. In turn, the number of RRU partners that Mavenir works with continues to grow, with each partner releasing new and sophisticated radios, with new software, across different radio technologies, output power, antenna dimensions and spectrum to meet the evolving needs of O-RAN customers.

The collaboration brings together HCL’s platform for third-party RRU testing and Mavenir’s full Centralized Unit (CU) and Distributed Unit (DU) RAN software stacks. RRU vendors will, as a result, be given the ability to work directly with HCL to assess their O-RAN interfaces and integrate with Mavenir’s O-RAN compliant cloud-native CU/DU software.

By simplifying testing and validation across multiple O-RAN interoperability profiles, the collaboration will help vendors fast-track validation of frequency variants and the increasingly diverse RRU offerings being demanded by the O-RAN market.

This partnership will benefit both RRU vendors and CSPs by supporting the continued expansion of the radio ecosystem and helping to establish a self-sustaining RRU business model:

• Vendors will be able to rapidly validate their O-RAN compliant RRUs as they develop portfolios of products targeted at different deployment scenarios.
• CSPs will be able to more easily identify the available O-RAN compliant RRU options for specific use cases and locations.

“We are directly addressing requests from customers and partners to speed the integration of new RRU products. The growing scale of the O-RAN industry now demands such a model. And thanks to O-RAN and open interfaces, new players such as HCL can enter the market to effectively serve the market needs,” said Mavenir’s Puneet Sethi, SVP/GM RAN Business Unit. “As more O-RAN RRU products become available and RRU partners are enabled to respond rapidly to their customers, CSPs worldwide will be able to take advantage of the full range of their spectrum assets and benefit from the rapidly accelerating RRU ecosystem.”

“The Mavenir-HCL partnership helps accelerate the adoption of O-RAN in the market, bringing a new suite of product offerings to CSPs and enterprises alike. HCL is bringing together many decades of network testing experience, 5G expertise, state of the art lab facilities and advanced automation tools to validate the interoperability between Mavenir and RRU partners. HCL provides the necessary visibility and reporting capability that enables operators and enterprises in deploying best-of-breed Mavenir O-RAN solutions,” said Rajiv Shesh, Corporate Vice President, Engineering and R&D Services, HCL Technologies.