Vodafone reveals the strategic vendors that will help the telecom giant build “Europe’s first commercial open RAN network.”
Vodafone has announced the partrners it has chosen to build its planned open RAN network. The partners include Dell, NEC, Samsung Electronics, Wind River, Capgemini Engineering and Keysight Technologies. The company believes the move will spark other large-scale Open RAN launches. This, they believe, will spearhead the next wave of digital transformation across Europe.
Backing from the European Commission and EU member governments
Vodafone said that the initiative has secured political and industrial policy support from the European Commission and the national governments of the EU. This only makes sense, they say, as Open RAN has the potential to bring more European companies into this emerging market.
Vodafone and its partners believe this will help build a European ecosystem around these novel network architectures. This in turn will boost the EU’s global technology leadership in digital infrastructure. Johan Wibergh, Vodafone Chief Technology Officer, priased the project. “Open RAN provides huge advantages for customers,” he said. “Our network will become highly programmable and automated meaning we can release new features simultaneously across multiple sites, add or direct capacity more quickly, resolve outages instantly and provide businesses with on-demand connectivity.”
“Open RAN is also reinvigorating our industry, Wibergh added. “It will boost the digital economy by stimulating greater tech innovation from a wider pool of vendors, bringing much needed diversity to the supply chain.” The announcement builds on Vodafone’s new Open RAN lab in Newbury, UK. It also ties in with the company’s planned digital skills hubs in Malaga, Spain, and Dresden, Germany.
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