What’s up with… Open RAN in India, Nokia & DISH, Cellwize & Intel

  • Bharti Airtel preps home-grown Open RAN-based 5G with Tata
  • DISH to deploy Nokia SA core on AWS
  • Cellwize and Intel team up on virtual RAN automation

An aggressive plan for indigenous Open RAN deployments by Bharti Airtel and further insight into DISH’s 5G core deployment plans get the week’s news ball rolling.

Indian operator giant Bharti Airtel has teamed up with Tata Group and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for the planned deployment of a ‘Made in India’ Open RAN-based 5G network rollout, with pilot deployments set for January 2022. According to Airtel, Tata has “developed a ‘state of the art’ O-RAN based Radio & NSA/SA Core and has integrated a totally indigenous telecom stack, leveraging the Group capabilities and that of its partners,” with the whole system set to be ready for “commercial development” by the start of next year. “We are delighted to join forces with the Tata Group to make India a global hub for 5G and allied technologies,” noted Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia) at Bharti Airtel. “With its world-class technology ecosystem and talent pool, India is well positioned to build cutting edge solutions and applications for the world. This will also provide a massive boost to India becoming an innovation and manufacturing destination,” he added. Bharti Airtel, which is a board member at the O-RAN Alliance, isn’t the only operator in the country planning to deploy an indigenous 5G network, as market leader Reliance Jio has already outlined a similar move. Read more

Nokia has confirmed it will be deploying its 5G standalone (SA) core system on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for DISH Network, which is approaching the initial launch of 5G services on its Open RAN-based greenfield network. Nokia noted that it is providing voice core, cloud packet core, subscriber data management, device management and NetGuard network security capabilities, “as well as professional end-to-end security services” for DISH.  “Running the Nokia 5G SA core on AWS will optimize our network operations to launch new software and services rapidly and efficiently, enabling the integration of countless innovative use cases for customers,” noted Marc Rouanne, Chief Network Officer at DISH. “This collaboration is an important step forward on our mission to deploy the United States’ first cloud-native, OpenRAN-based 5G network.” DISH first announced it had selected Nokia’s SA core in September 2020, and announced in April this year that it would build out its 5G network (RAN, core and OSS/BSS functionality) on AWS infrastructure. Read more.

Still with Nokia… The vendor says that following successful trials, technical aircraft services provider Lufthansa Technik has “recently brought Nokia 5G private wireless networking into full-time commercial deployment at its facility in Hamburg, Germany.” Read more

Cellwize has teamed up with Intel to offer automated virtual radio access network (RAN) capabilities to network operators. Cellwize’s RAN automation and orchestration system, CHIME, is being made available on Intel Xeon Scalable processors “with built-in AI acceleration and Intel FlexRAN reference software in order to propel deployment of automated AI-driven 5G vRAN networks,” noted the partners in this announcement.

Belgian national operator Proximus is undergoing a redevelopment of its current headquarters in Brussels that will see it sell the building and then become a “partial tenant” of the revamped building, which will be a “a sustainable and inspiring digital campus that fosters connections, collaboration and innovation.” Read more.

Etisalat is deploying mmWave technology from Ericsson to provide high-speed, low-latency services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Read more.

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