Nokia, Vodafone complete Open RAN trial in Italy

Nokia and Vodafone have completed an end-to-end Open RAN trial on Vodafone Italy’s live 5G standalone network. The trial utilized Nokia’s AirScale Massive MIMO radios and Nokia’s baseband software running on Dell PowerEdge XR8000 servers and Red Hat OpenShift, an industry leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes, connected to Nokia’s standalone dedicated 5G core.

It also used Nokia’s intelligent MantaRay Networks Management system for a consolidated network view and improved monitoring and management. The trial highlights the maturity of Nokia's anyRAN approach which is designed to give mobile operators and enterprises more flexibility in building networks.

Nokia is supporting Open Fronthaul features on top of its high-performance RAN software which ensures mobile operators have performance consistency with their existing RAN. Nokia has already integrated with five open radio unit (O-RU) suppliers highlighting the openness and industry-leading performance of Nokia's AirScale O-RAN DU/CU. The solution offers operators enhanced flexibility, efficiency, and scalability in their mobile networks. By integrating with Red Hat OpenShift, service providers also have the option to scale their 5G network footprint and quickly introduce new services.

Vodafone aims to have 30 percent of its masts based on Open RAN technology by 2030 in Europe and is already deploying the technology commercially. This includes 2,500 Open RAN sites in the UK, the first large-scale deployment in Europe, as well as in Romania. By partnering with key strategic vendors like Nokia, Vodafone is pioneering the wider adoption of open, disaggregated, and automated networks, providing greater agility to quickly adopt and launch innovative new customer-focused services.

Santiago Tenorio, Director of Network Architecture at Vodafone, said: “Vodafone is dedicated to supporting the development and adoption of Open RAN worldwide by fostering a diverse ecosystem of partners and solutions. This approach offers numerous benefits, including increased choice, enhanced energy efficiency, higher network capacity, and improved performance for customers.”

Mark Atkinson, Head of RAN at Nokia, said: “Nokia’s collaborative anyRAN approach means that Communication Service Providers can deploy Open RAN with the server hardware and CaaS layer of their choice. Together with our ecosystem partners, we are committed to providing more choice and higher performance in Open RAN solutions to our customers than they will see from other RAN suppliers.”