8 October 2018

*Simplified Engagement for Operators for Cloud RAN Solution With Open Interfaces *

**Richardson, TX – ** October 8, 2018 – Mavenir , focused on transforming mobile network economics for communications service providers (CSPs), is announcing an Open RAN partner ecosystem that provides more options and makes it easy for operators to deploy an innovative, flexible Cloud-based Open RAN solution. Mavenir will act as the End-to-End systems integrator simplifying the engagement for operators and creating an offering that is on par with the traditional, hardware centric proprietary vendors.

Ecosystem partners include MTI, Tecore Networks, Baicells, NEC, AceAxis, KMW, Benetel, CommScope, Blue Danube Systems and Airrays.

“Mavenir has always been extremely active in promoting open interfaces as we believe it is in the interest of the CSPs and the overall industry. We will continue to support any effort in the direction of cloud-based architectures and virtualized solutions,” said Pardeep Kohli, President and CEO of Mavenir. “The formation of this ecosystem essentially creates a challenger to the traditional radio vendors. Mavenir would like to encourage any other player to support this effort which will result in a significant disruptive game changer as operators continue to seek a new economic model in a world where a traditional, hardware-based approach is no longer a viable option.”

“This Open RAN ecosystem announcement expands the addressable market for Open RAN solutions,” said Daryl Schoolar, Practice Leader, Service Provider Infrastructure and Software at Ovum. “The ecosystem partners allow for addressing a greater variety of deployment scenarios. End-to-end solution integration makes it easier for smaller operators to deploy these solutions as Mavenir will take on the responsibility of interoperability testing and multi-vendor integration. Smaller operators can lack the internal resources to deploy and manage a multi-vendor network.”

“Global mobile transformation is being defined by 5G, IOT, and subscriber demand for exponential capacity driving new economics and ecosystems, as a partner with Mavenir we are excited to be at the forefront driving a software and open ecosystem,” said Mark Pinto, CEO of Blue Danube.

“The xRAN interoperability testing between Baicells and Mavenir proves that the future of 5G has arrived,” said Minchul Ho, Vice-President of Vertical Sales, Baicells. “The Cloud RAN architecture provides operators several benefits including reduced opex from maintenance, economies of scale efficiencies and vast improved performance due to greater coordination among cells.”

“Achieving seamless Interoperability whilst providing a high level of system flexibility presents a significant challenge to both the RRU vendor and CSP community alike,” said Adrian O’Connor, CEO of Benetel. “However, with the help of these disruptive ecosystem partners and leaders like Mavenir, we will realize an end to end solution in the coming months”.

Interoperability testing has already been conducted based on the xRAN Option 7.2 split specification. Recently, the full xRAN (now ORAN) specifications have been officially released containing the management plane (M-plane), for which Mavenir significantly contributed, making this a complete open specification. Mavenir continues to test the latest version of the Option 7.2 split with the ecosystem partners, who are committed to the Open RAN community and making their solutions commercially available.

This approach is now being favored by Operators who want to embrace Open RAN as it allows the deployment of open market (whitebox) remote radio unit (RRUs) to interwork with the virtualized cloud base band unit (vBBU) over ethernet fronthaul (FH). With this, CSPs can break the stranglehold of closed proprietary specifications and the need to implement dark fiber for RRU fronthaul, which could pose significant economical burdens in some countries. They can continue to provide fronthaul and backhaul in the traditional ways like microwaves and IP/MPLS technologies.

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