Nokia this week announced a successful, weeks-long trial of a cloud Radio Access Network on infrastructure owned by French carrier Orange.
The companies said the test, held in Poland between March and early May, included commercial traffic in the largest such configuration to date, and represented the first trial of its kind in Europe to use a carrier’s own infrastructure.
“We have demonstrated that Nokia AirScale Cloud RAN is ready for commercial deployments, helping Orange and other customers to start deploying flexible and agile cloud-based networks,” said Alain Biston, head of Mobile Network Business Management at Nokia.
The test used an LTE network, radio sites in the city of Chelm and a virtualized portion of the baseband located at a data center more than 40 miles away in Lublin.
The system, officials said, allowed time-critical functions to be performed at the cell site and connected with Ethernet fronthaul, while centralized software at the data center performed non-critical functions more cost-efficiently.
The companies added that the test served as preparation for the eventual introduction of a distributed cloud architecture for 5G.
“For Orange, RAN virtualization is a critical enabler to deliver a better and more homogeneous customer experience on 4G and future 5G networks, allowing these multi-service networks to simultaneously handle various type of objects with different connectivity needs,” said Orange Global VP of Radio Access Networks and Microwaves Arnaud Vamparys.
Filed Under: Infrastructure