Vodafone on Monday reaffirmed its dedication to Open RAN networks by announcing it would cooperate with Intel to develop a chipset design specifically for the emerging technology.
The European operator also announced that it was working with Nokia to test the technology in Italy and that it had made its first 4G calls using Open RAN through network premises shared by Orange in Romania.
Mobile operators’ flexibility may be increased by using equipment from different suppliers in combination with open RAN.
Though Huawei has been hampered by government prohibitions in some nations, notably Britain, progress has been slow and proprietary solutions from Ericsson, Nokia, and other companies continue to dominate the industry.
In 2022, Vodafone decided to collaborate with American chipmaker Intel on the possibility of creating its own chip architecture.
Santiago Tenorio, the company’s director of network architecture, revealed that the partners would work together to develop chipsets on the company’s campus in Malaga, Spain.
“Combining Vodafone’s networking expertise with Intel’s strength in silicon architecture design will enable rapid prototyping, verification and testing, eventually leading to a faster mass production of the chips the industry needs to accelerate,” he said.
Vodafone and Orange announced on Monday that using Open RAN technology, they had successfully placed 4G calls over a collection of stations in a remote area close to Bucharest.
