Vodafone opened a dedicated R&D center this week for designing microchip architecture to power new Open RAN networks. The center, which will be located in Vodafone’s new digital skills in hub Málaga, Spain, will have 50 people dedicated to developing Open RAN in addition to the 650 software engineers, architects and technicians based at the hub. Around 20 vendors specializing in chip architecture design and development will join Vodafone at the hub.
In November, Vodafone joined Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, and Telefónica in calling upon the European Union to “urgently prioritize” the deployment of open, intelligent, virtualized and fully interoperable radio access networks.
“One core strength of Open RAN is that it separates the hardware and software at a mobile base station, allowing for a mix of equipment from different vendors,” said Francisco Martin, Head of Open RAN, Vodafone. “This means Vodafone can respond quickly to customer demand for more capacity and new services by simply adding new software onto general-purpose hardware.”
The newly opened European R&D Centre will specialize in developing new technology solutions and digital services based on unified communications, the Internet of Things, Edge Computing, Mobile and Private Networks, as well as Open RAN. It is equipped with the latest Vodafone 5G and fiber connectivity, as well as laboratory infrastructure and office space.
“By collaborating with vendors on microchip architecture and design, [we] can drive greater interoperability within the Open RAN ecosystem,” Martin said. “The company will implement the jointly developed silicon solutions in its platforms to deliver improved performance and efficiencies as network capacity demands increase.”
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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