Ericsson scoops Red Dot Award for RAN automation UI

Ericsson has been recognised for its RAN automation UI, winning the prestigious Red Dot Award for Design Concept 2024 in the ‘Interaction, UI, and User Experience’ category. The award celebrates Ericsson’s work on the user experience for its rApps portfolio, a suite of RAN automation applications built on O-RAN Alliance standards.

Ericsson’s winning design centres around the UI of its AI-powered rApps, developed by the company’s Cognitive Network Solutions division....

5 August 2024 | 5G

The dawn of OpenRAN: Revolutionising mobile networks

Born from the need for greater flexibility and cost-efficiency in mobile networks, OpenRAN (Open Radio Access Networks) emerged in the mid-2010s as a radical reimagining of cellular infrastructure. The concept gained momentum in 2016 when the xRAN Forum was established, later merging with the C-RAN Alliance to form the O-RAN Alliance in 2018. This collaborative effort aimed to break the stranglehold of proprietary, integrated systems that had long dominated the...

25 July 2024 | 5G

Global firms join SONIC Labs initiative for Open RAN testing

Digital Catapult has announced that its SONIC Labs initiative, focused on developing Open RAN technology, is launching a new phase with the introduction of several international companies into its program. These companies will utilise the newly established outdoor testing facility in West London, exploring the practical applications and benefits of Open RAN in a real-world setting.

Open RAN technology seeks to revolutionise the telecoms industry by promoting interoperability among...

25 April 2024 | 5G

Nokia and Dell extend partnership for network cloud transformation

Nokia and Dell Technologies have announced the extension of the companies’ strategic partnership in order to ‘advance open network architectures in the telecom ecosystem and private 5G use cases among businesses’.

This amounts in effect to utilising each company’s area of expertise; infrastructure solutions from Dell and private wireless connectivity solutions from Nokia.

Nokia will use Dell as its preferred infrastructure partner for existing customers of Nokia...

15 February 2024 | Digital Transformation

Verizon deploys over 130,000 O-RAN radios

Verizon has deployed over 130,000 O-RAN capable radios – including massive MIMO antennas – as part of 15,000 O-RAN compliant cell sites utilising virtualised baseband units. This marks a major milestone in Verizon’s transition to Open RAN architecture, which promises greater flexibility, innovation, and supplier diversity in the radio access network ecosystem. 

The open and interoperable interfaces enabled by O-RAN standards allow different hardware and software components...

6 February 2024 | 5G

Dell’Oro forecasts RAN market downturn to continue

The global Radio Access Network (RAN) market will continue its downturn over the next few years, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.

Dell'Oro forecasts that RAN revenues will decline at a compound annual growth rate of one percent through 2024. This comes on the heels of massive 40 percent growth from 2017 to 2021, when the market was boosted by initial 5G network builds.

Growth stabilised in 2022 but is expected to drop sharply in 2023, led by a pullback in...

23 January 2024 | 5G

AT&T plans most wireless traffic to flow across Open RAN by 2026

AT&T has unveiled plans to transition 70 percent of its wireless network traffic to open-capable platforms by late 2026.

The telecoms giant aims to fully integrate Open RAN sites in collaboration with industry leaders Ericsson and Fujitsu, starting as early as 2024. This departure from closed proprietary interfaces signifies a pivotal shift towards rapid scaling and effective management of diverse hardware suppliers at each cell site.

AT&T's timeline includes...

5 December 2023 | 5G

Dish achieves simultaneous 5G CA for FDD spectrum

Dish, in partnership with Samsung and Qualcomm, has achieved simultaneous 5G 2x uplink and 4x downlink carrier aggregation (CA) for FDD spectrum.

The partners attained a 200 Mbps uplink peak speed with a mere 35 MHz of 5G spectrum. Additionally, the Dish 5G network demonstrated extraordinary downlink peak speeds of 1.3 Gbps – utilising only 75 MHz of 5G spectrum – across FDD bands n71, n70, and n66.

These achievements, which signify world-firsts, were made possible...

17 October 2023 | 5G

NEC and Freshwave project selected for UK’s Open RAN competition

NEC and Freshwave have been selected for Project NAVIGATE as part of the UK Government’s Open Networks Ecosystem (ONE) competition.

ONE is part of the government’s ambitious £250 million 5G Telecoms Supply Chain Diversification Strategy, aimed at nurturing pioneering research and development projects in the telecom sector.

Tom Bennett, CTO at Freshwave, said: “We’re excited to have been successful in the Open Networks Ecosystem Competition and looking forward to...

16 October 2023 | 5G

Vodafone and Arm to collaborate on Open RAN platforms

To meet the surging demand for faster and greener mobile connectivity, Vodafone is collaborating with Arm to expedite the development of new platforms for Open Radio Access Networks (Open RAN).

By leveraging Arm architecture, Vodafone aims to create platforms optimised for use in Open RAN base stations; ensuring they possess enough computational prowess to meet the escalating demands of advanced 5G services. These processors, adhering to Open RAN principles, will utilise...

10 October 2023 | 5G