Mavenir says the completed tests are the latest steps to deliver an open and vendor-interoperable 4G connectivity solution for small to medium-sized office locations.

Vodafone first worked on a contained indoor enterprise connectivity solution in January 2021. Now, it has completed tests for an important stage of the technology roadmap.

The plug-and-play small cell equipment can provide 4G mobile coverage in every corner of the office, and leverages radio hardware from Sercomm and software from Mavenir (Open RAN).

Mavenir says this containerised solution is a major milestone in the evolution of connectivity equipment away from physical infrastructure to a digital cloud-based environment.

For Mavenir, containerisation provides greater flexibility for customers, but also significant benefits in terms of speed and cost of deployment.

Containerisation means that software can be transferred between equipment, platforms, and applications. Wind River provided its Containers as a Service (CaaS) software, part of Wind River Studio.

Moving forward, Vodafone and Mavenir will focus on finalising the packaging and automation of the solution before beginning trials with selected customers.

Open RAN technology separates software from hardware. The approach will see many companies providing the components that make up a mobile network site,where previously one vendor would have delivered the whole solution.

Mavenir says that Vodafone supports the development of this vendor ecosystem.

Whereas much of the focus for Open RAN has been directed towards network infrastructure deployment on mobile sites throughout the UK, the technology can be implemented in an enterprise environment to support local connectivity requirements.

As an interoperable and standardised technology, Open RAN solutions can be integrated with little disruption in a “plug and play” manner, interoperable with other Open RAN compliant vendors.

“Open RAN is opening doors to simplified and intuitive connectivity solutions. For our wider network deployment strategy, Open RAN is enabling us to work with a wider pool of suppliers and to avoid vendor lock-in scenarios that might prevent us from taking advantage of the latest innovations. The same could be said for enterprise connectivity solutions,” comments Vodafone UK chief network officer Andrea Dona.

“From the moment Open RAN is deployed in an office environment, customers are no-longer locked into a single upgrade path. Working alongside Vodafone, customers can be more flexible in how connectivity solutions are adapted and upgraded as demands evolve in the future,” Dona says.

“Cloud Native and Open Solutions are becoming the new reality of the mobile world, and these include Radio Access and its containerised implementation. Open vRAN is a very flexible architecture that can serve any type of segment. Working with Vodafone is an opportunity to show that automated and AI controlled systems will simplify life to business and industry,” concludes Mavenir executive vice president and chief marketing officer Stefano Cantarelli.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 15 December 2021.