The results of the Open RAN trial will be shared with the TIP community
Telecom Egypt is working on a proof-of-concept trial for Open RAN solutions in Egypt. With support from Altiostar, Cisco, the Evenstar program and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), the operator is exploring how Open RAN can offer greater vendor flexibility and lead to an “open, multivendor and disaggregated network.
Telecom Egypt’s Managing Director and CEO, Adel Hamed stated that, in addition to adding flexibility, Open RAN will also help reduce costs and “component-level efficiency” for operators.
“Our hope is that early positive experiences will lead to greater commercial adoption of these initial products which will, in turn, help expand the network of Open RAN suppliers,” he continued. “With the specialist help of Cisco and by working with partners like in the Evenstar ecosystem, we intend to drive disruptive technology innovations to keep Open RAN competitive in the long term.”
The trial will make use of an Evenstar radio unit in its initial Open RAN deployment. By decoupling the radio unit (RU) hardware, distributed unit (DU), and control unit (CU) software of the RAN, Evenstar provides operators the flexibility to deploy solutions from an increasing number of technology providers, while increasing network coverage.
Cisco’s Edge Computing Technology and Cisco’s fronthaul transport solution will also be used for the trial. The solutions will be used for Open RAN cell sites, providing validation of a complete, end-to-end Open RAN network. Finally, the trial will also test Altiostar’s Open vRAN common software platform for the DU and CU functions.
The operator said that the results of the trial will be shared with TIP community through the TIP Open RAN project group.
