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Vodafone is escalating its commitment to Open RAN technology, collaborating with Nokia in a trail-blazing initiative in Italy. The project is expected to yield significant benefits for the European region as a whole.

A frontrunner of Open RAN deployment, Vodafone has largely focused its European advancements on their home base, the UK. In collaboration with Nokia, this technology will now also extend its influences to Italy.

While Vodafone and Nokia confirmed this would be their inaugural commercial 5G Open RAN pilot in Italy, other operators such as incumbent TIM have already made prior explorations.

Taking place in Northern Italy, the Vodafone pilot will leverage Nokia‘s containerised baseband software. This runs on the Red Hat OpenShift platform, hosted on Dell PowerEdge XR8000 servers. Furthermore, these servers will support a Smart Network Interface Card (NIC) developed jointly by Nokia and Marvell for Layer 1 processing.

While the perks of Open RAN – encompassing factors like enhanced functionality, decreased maintenance, diversification and potentially cost-efficiency – are well-established, Vodafone remains firm in its mission. Their primary focus of the pilot is to guarantee that Nokia‘s Open RAN implementation matches the functionality and output of its bespoke RAN.

This consideration is critical to the overall success of the technology. After all, operators need assurance that performance quality remains uncompromised.

Vodafone and Nokia is focused on cultivating an automated, adaptable network responsive to customer needs. This essentially caters to the growing demand for reactive, 5G-centric services that utilize AI and extended reality from both consumer and corporate clienteles.

Undeniably, the eventual goal is monetizing 5G beyond just offering accelerated mobile services. However, the logical first step is to lay the groundwork by building network capabilities before offering new, revenue-generating services to customers.

Representing an important pillar of their continental strategy, Vodafone announced: “Today’s announcement reinforces Vodafone’s commitment to supporting the EU digital economy with the deployment of customer-focussed Open RAN networks.”

Echoing the efforts emerging from Brussels to spur digital sovereignty in the EU, the telecom corporation insists the collaboration with Nokia shall prompt competition and innovation in Europe. This will not only help independent software creators and startups but also strengthen the continent’s competitiveness globally.

Remarkably, this Open RAN pilot not only flatters EU initiatives but also underlines Vodafone‘s ambitions. It’s a reminder of their target to ensure that 30% of its European masts will be Open RAN-based by 2030. In fact, progress has been seen in the UK with plans to deploy 2,500 sites in Wales and the South West.

The latest Italian venture is expected to amplify Vodafone‘s Open RAN credentials even further. As an industry leader, keeping pace with their rapid expansion in the telecommunication space will certainly be intriguing.

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