The radio node on the 4G network was built by combining JMA’s software baseband with the radio units provided by Microelectronics Technology (MTI) of Taiwan.
“This initiative will see the group implement new solutions on its commercial network to benefit customers and businesses thereby speeding up the deployment of digital services,” says TIM, “the initiative is covered by the signing of a memorandum of understanding last February with the main European operators to promote open RAN technology with the aim of speeding up the implementation of new generation mobile networks, in particular 5G, cloud and edge computing.
That agreement was made by Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, Vodafone and TIM.
The aim of the agreement is to: “Provide a framework for a specific commitment to support the development of a non-fragmented global open RAN ecosystem for deployment across the European network footprint of each of the signatories, and to start operation as soon as solutions become mature enough for a given targeted use case”.
The agreement contains a schedule listing activities necessary to support the continued development of open RAN ecosystem and individual operational deployment of open RAN.
The timescale for completing these activities was stated in the agreement to be six months – which is up in August 2021.