By Oystein Bergmann, Bureau Chief, Scandinavia

Nokia has announced that they have successfully completed interoperability testing with a Mavenir radio using the O-RAN Alliance 7-2x interface at Nokia’s Open RAN Innovation Center in Dallas, Texas.

During the trial, both companies validated the interoperability of Mavenir’s CBRS Radio Unit and Nokia AirScale Baseband supporting the O-RAN compliant 7-2x interface. The testing was performed according to O-RAN Alliance specifications, demonstrating end-to-end configurations with 5G user devices. Nokia and Mavenir are able to demonstrate 5G peak performance by activating 4CC Carrier Aggregation using TDD and FDD spectrum in a 5G Standalone configuration.

Nokia’s anyRAN approach is designed to give mobile operators and enterprises more flexibility in building networks that combine purpose-built, hybrid, and Cloud RAN architectures with common software. Nokia is supporting Open Fronthaul features on top of its high-performance RAN software which ensures mobile operators have performance parity with their existing RAN.

Nokia and Mavenir are long-term supporters of open networks and have invested heavily to advance the goals of the O-RAN Alliance to build open, interoperable, and intelligent networks. This industry milestone highlights both parties’ ongoing commitment to open interfaces as well as their investment in R&D in the US market.

SVP, Business Development at Mavenir, John Baker commented: “This solution demonstrates a full circle of O-RAN interoperability whereby our industry-leading RAN portfolio integrates and interoperates in both directions with products from other RAN suppliers. This is real Open RAN – not the version where one supplier only connects their own products to each other. It is a great credit to both teams that they could integrate our Radio with Nokia’s Baseband in record time.”

Head of RAN at Nokia, Mark Atkinson said: “Our technology collaboration with Mavenir is further evidence of our commitment to Open RAN. We have developed our baseband software in a way that ensures that multi-supplier O-RAN systems can be deployed without compromises in performance, energy efficiency, security, or resiliency. This is key when people depend on wireless connectivity in all aspects of their daily lives. We have now completed operability with Radios from four different suppliers using the O-RAN compliant 7-2x interface.”