Nokia and Elisa deploy commercial 5G Cloud RAN in European first
Nokia has successfully completed a commercial Cloud RAN deployment with the Finnish telcomms and digital service provider, Elisa in Espoo, Finland.
Elisa can now deploy Nokia’s commercial Cloud RAN, which can co-exist with purpose-built networks in hybrid environments and evolve into full cloud-native networks, supporting the rising demand for RAN cloudification. Common Nokia RAN software ensures feature and performance consistency of Cloud RAN and purpose-built RAN across the entire commercial footprint. Both companies previously completed Europe’s first Cloud RAN trial in October 2023.
The commercial deployment completed end-to-end 5G voice and data calls with Nokia’s 5G Cloud RAN offering including its AirScale Massive MIMO radios, baseband software, and AI-powered MantaRay network management system. Nokia’s high-performance, energy-efficient Cloud RAN architecture seamlessly integrates with all leading cloud or server infrastructures. Elisa utilized Dell XR8620 servers as well as Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes, to support cloud-native RAN functions across the network. By integrating with Red Hat OpenShift, service providers have the option to scale their 5G network footprint and quickly introduce new services. The deployment verified areas such as capacity, performance, features, life cycle management, automation, and energy management.
As a pioneer of 5G services in Finland, Elisa is pursuing network cloudification and extending this transformation from the network core towards the access network. Cloudification plays a key role in the scalability of network services and allows the operator to meet customers’ changing needs. With Cloud RAN Elisa is able to shift the network computing power closer to the customers, whose network usage is transforming closer to the network edge. AI-powered applications are likely to accelerate the demand for edge computing in the future.
A benefit of the early adoption of Cloud RAN is trialing the new cloud-native production model, which differs significantly from earlier models, involves a whole new ecosystem. Deploying the first commercial 5G cloud network in Europe puts Elisa in a strong position while moving towards the 6G era — which is predicted to be increasingly cloud-native. Further, it plays a key role in Elisa’s journey towards self-driving and self-healing autonomous networks.
Nokia has already completed numerous end-to-end 5G data calls in multi-supplier setups with hardware and software from its best-in-class ecosystem of leading industry partners. It is further evidence of Nokia’s flexible anyRAN approach that provides the best choice of strategic options for communications service providers and enterprises for their RAN evolution with purpose-built, hybrid, or Cloud RAN, enabling customers to monetize their networks.
Kalle Lehtinen, Chief Technology Officer, Elisa said: “This successful deployment with Nokia is another important step on our cloudification which started with the network core and edge, and now includes the radio access network. We continue to pioneer new technologies in our journey towards autonomous operations helping us to continue innovating and delivering best customer experience.”
Honoré LaBourdette, vice president, Telco, Media, Entertainment and Edge Ecosystem, Red Hat, commented: “Cloud RAN’s significance lies not only in providing an efficient and flexible way to deploy applications and derive value at the edge but also in boosting collaboration and innovation across the ecosystem. With Red Hat OpenShift, we’re making this vision a reality by offering a consistent hybrid cloud foundation that empowers businesses to build and scale the applications of the future.”
Aji Ed, Head of Cloud RAN at Nokia, said: “This successful collaboration with Elisa confirms that our Cloud RAN offering is ready for commercial deployment. Under our anyRAN approach, we work very closely with strategic partners like Red Hat and bring together best-in-class partner solutions to offer true flexibility and scalability to operators and enterprises. For our customers, cloudification will enable new revenue models and monetization options.”
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
