Virgin Media O2’s O-RAN deployment is initially taking place in the Northamptonshire region
U.K. telco Virgin Media O2, NEC and Rakuten Symphony have announced that their joint multi-vendor Open RAN deployment is entering the field phase, starting with the activation of the first live sites in Virgin Media O2’s commercial network.
In a release, Rakuten Symphony noted that the O-RAN deployment is initially taking place in the Northamptonshire region.
The field deployment, which is now operational to handle commercial traffic, follows an O-RAN lab trial on Virgin Media O2’s network with NEC, Rakuten Symphony and other ecosystem partners last year.
These first live O-RAN macro-sites in Virgin Media O2’s network are possible after extensive testing at NEC and Rakuten Symphony’s labs in India and NEC’s Global Open RAN Center of Excellence lab in London, the partners said.
Jeanie York, CTO at Virgin Media O2, said that the successful activation of Virgin Media O2’s first U.K. macro-sites demonstrates the potential of the multi-vendor Open RAN model.
Virgin Media O2 launched services in June 2021 as a joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica in the U.K. Liberty Global and Telefonica had reached an agreement to merge their U.K. operations in a 50-50 joint venture in May of 2020.
The company, which has committed to investing at least £10 billion (currently $11.7 billion) in the U.K., has 47 million connections across broadband, mobile, TV and fixed phone. Its own fixed network currently passes 15.9 million premises while its mobile network currently covers 99% of the country’s population with 4G, and more than 600 towns and cities with 5G services targeting 50% population coverage in 2023.
In May, the U.K. government announced a set of principles for the development and deployment of O-RAN equipment.
The government noted that there is a need for clarity on the design characteristics of O-RAN, such as the adoption of standards and demonstration of interoperability between components. These O-RAN principles clear up this ambiguity to ensure it delivers on its promise of resilient and secure networks for 5G and beyond, and innovative and competitive supply chains for the long-run, the government said.
The four principles outlined in the publication are:
-Open disaggregation, allowing elements of the RAN to be sourced from different suppliers.
-Standards-based compliance, allowing all suppliers to test solutions against standards in an open, neutral environment.
-Demonstrated interoperability, ensuring disaggregated elements work together as a fully functional system.
-Implementation neutrality, allowing suppliers to innovate and differentiate on the features and performance of their products.
In December 2021 the U.K. government had announced a joint ambition made with U.K. mobile network operators for 35% of mobile network traffic to pass through O-RAN by the end of the decade.
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