ODIN Roundup Week 29 – From Open RAN’s second coming to Bath to NVIDIA’s AI for Open RAN and 6G; Open Transport news and OpenWiFi updates

This week features a mix of announcements covered by ODIN, stories from Light Reading, Fierce Network, SDxCentral, The Lowy Institute, a great blog post from NVIDIA providing an update on its work on AI in 6G networks, some Open Transport news, OpenWiFi webinars and more!

Table of contents:

• Open RAN
• Open Transport
• OpenWiFi

---

• The city of Bath in the UK is launching a government funded Open RAN pilot scheme later this summer.
• This is the second Open RAN deployment in the city and follows the launch of Vodafone‘s, and the UK’s, first Open RAN deployment back in 2022.
• Telet, who put together the successful bid for £9,910,790 of government grants on behalf of its Western O-RAN Deployment (WORD) consortium, will manage the project which will have a total value of £14.5m.
• The pilot scheme itself is fully funded by a £773,132 government grant.

Read the full story from ODIN here.

---

• EchoStar announced the launch of its new Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID).
• Led by DISH Wireless, ORCID will be run in partnership with its consortium partners Fujitsu, Mavenir and VMware by Broadcom.
• ORCID’s “living laboratory” features a real field test setup, designed to help drive the O-RAN ecosystem from lab to commercial deployment.

Read the full story from ODIN here.

---

• Japan appears to be using the Quad to pursue its ambitions to promote domestic 5G network players.
• Equipment manufacturers NEC and Fujitsu, plus mobile network operator Rakuten and others, are each pursuing Open RAN technology, which they and the Japanese government believe will enable them to compete in the highly 5G concentrated market.

Read the full story from the Lowy Institute here.

---

• Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone are working to pair new management software with Huawei’s radio access network as an alternative to its complete removal.
• To the dismay of Huawei‘s European rivals, Germany and its operators may just have given the world a template for dealing with the problematic Chinese vendor.
• It would be a step toward an open RAN, a telco push for complete interoperability between different RAN suppliers. Huawei, in public, is opposed to the whole idea.

Read the full story from Light Reading here.

---

• Debt-ridden CommScope is selling off its outdoors networks business.
• Amphenol will buy the outdoor 5G and DAS business for $2.1 billion in cash.
• AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have been among the customers of the outdoor network group.

Read the full story on Fierce Network here.

---

• Neutral host RAN – for public and private uses – is spreading across Europe
• The UK already has a specification that enables open RAN radios to be shared by several MNOs on a private network
• SNS Telecom estimates that by 2027 as much of one fifth of all small cell deployments in carpeted enterprises will be multi-operator

Read the full story on Fierce Network here.

---

• The pace of 6G research and development is picking up as the 5G era crosses the midpoint of the decade-long cellular generation time frame.
• NVIDIA is not only delivering AI native 6G tools but is also working with partners and industry groups to accelerate innovation.
• Likewise, NVIDIA is working with its partners and the wider telecommunications ecosystem (including the AI-RAN Alliance, 3GPP, and O-RAN) to drive AI/ML-enabled innovations that will shape the requirements and opportunities for the 6G era.

Read the full blog post from NVIDIA here

---

Key Takeaways:

• Energy Efficiency: Implementing green scheduling algorithms significantly reduces power consumption in Open RAN environments.
• AI-Driven Optimization: Leveraging AI techniques for resource allocation ensures optimal performance while minimizing energy usage.
• Scalability: Cloud-native architectures offer flexible and scalable solutions for real-time network demands.
• Sustainability: Integrating green technologies in telecom networks contributes to global sustainability goals.

Read the full research paper here.

---

Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLoS) drone operation has emerged as a prominent Internet-of-Robots enabler. From the abstract:

“In this work, we deploy a state-of-the-art 5G O-RAN open-source BVLoS operational system, report current limitations, and address them via advanced capabilities natively available in O-RAN: Slicing. Our proposed deployment minimizes trajectory errors due to 5G link congestion and keeps latency well below the 3GPP limits defined for BVLoS operation. Finally, we discuss the challenges ahead and the opportunities that 5G O-RAN-enabled networks may bring to BVLoS drone operation.”

Read the full white paper here.

---

When: Jul 30, 2024 1:00pm ET

Speakers:

• Kevin Pope, Vice President & CIO, AMB Sports and Entertainment
• Stefan Pongratz, Vice President (Industry Analyst), Dell’Oro Group
• Upendra Pingle, Senior Vice President, Intelligent Cellular Networks, CommScope

You can register for the webinar here.

---

• IP Infusion announced that Brsk, a UK based broadband provider, is deploying its OcNOS-SP-Plus networking software on Edgecore hardware to aggregate OLT traffic.
• Brsk, who recently merged with Netomia to become the UK’s second largest altnet behind CityFibre, is rolling out full fibre broadband in the West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, and West Midlands regions of the UK.
• The deployment ensures compatibility with existing vendors Juniper and Nokia while offering the cost saving benefits and operational flexibility open and disaggregated solutions offer.

Read the full story from ODIN here.

---

• Nokia’s recent move to acquire optical networking rival Infinera for $2.3 billion is set to move that hotly competitive market toward a more stratified operating position.
• Nokia management said it expects the new assets to deliver more than 10% earnings per share accretion by 2027, and more than $200 million in operating profit synergies by that same year.
• Jimmy Yu, VP at Dell’Oro Group, noted that the deal solidifies Nokia as one of the optical networking market’s big three alongside Huawei and Ciena.

Read the full story on SDxCentral here.

---

Transform your understanding of the WiFi industry as Marcel Chenier, CTO at NetExperience reveals groundbreaking advancements and future trends. Whether you’re a service provider seeking to optimize supply chains or a curious tech enthusiast, this episode is packed with valuable knowledge on the future of Wi-Fi.

Speakers:

• Evan Kristel, The B2B TechInfluencer
• Marcel Chenier, CTO, NetExperience

---

This session will explore the latest advancements in WiFi technology and how OpenWiFi can transform network management for property owners, managers, and residents.

When: Aug 8, 2024 05:00 PM CEST

Speakers:

• Robert Grosz, President & COO, WorldVue
• Mark Schaps, SVP & CIO, WorldView
• Bernard Herscovici, Founder & CEO, NetExperience