Operator begins new phase of deployment in Exmouth and Torquay
Vodafone is deploying OpenRAN technology on 16 mobile masts in Exmouth (pictured) and Torquay in the south-west of England over next few months. The operator says it is the first time OpenRAN has been deployed in an urban environment in Europe as opposed to rural areas.
Vodafone has been working alongside the industry to advance OpenRAN technology, including through two of its own OpenRAN Research and Development centres in Newbury, in southern England and Malaga, Spain.
This work has enabled deployments in more complex environments. such as urban locations and transport hubs, according to Vodafone. It also says that as interoperability embedded in OpenRAN, the operator will be able to work with businesses outside the established telecoms ecosystem.
Wider network strategy
OpenRAN is a critical component of Vodafone’s wider network strategy. The disaggregated technology promises to make it easier for new suppliers to enter the market and hence more innovation at less cost while adding more resilience and diversity to the supply chain.
Vodafone, which is struggling on a number of fronts, says, “This flexibility will mean the introduction of new technology and software to increase the energy efficiency of operations, the ability to introduce new specialist services and allowing Vodafone to prioritise investments in new ways as upgrade paths of hardware and software components are no longer intrinsically linked”.
In this latest deployment, Vodafone worked with Dell, Intel, Samsung, Wind River and Capgemini.
Planned deployment
Digital Infrastructure Minister Julia Lopez said, “We encourage other providers to roll out OpenRAN in urban areas and continue to support a more diverse, innovative and resilient telecoms supply chain through our £250 million investment programme.”
At Mobile World Congress 2022, Vodafone committed to deploying OpenRAN on 30% of mobile sites across its European network by 2030. More recently, it began OpenRAN trials in Germany, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NTT Docomo.
It has also agreed a partnership with Nokia to jointly develop an OpenRAN compliant solution that incorporates Nokia’s ReefShark system on a chip (SoC).
Andrea Dona, Chief Network Officer, Vodafone UK, said: “Vodafone was one of the first companies worldwide to commit to OpenRAN at scale,” adding, it is now “taking lab innovations into the real world [in] an essential step forward for the health and resilience of our industry.”