By Juan Pedro Tomás
US-based Open RAN company Parallel Wireless said it is partnering with Inatel, Telecom Infra Project (TIP), Brisanet, Claro, TIM, and Vivo to conduct a field trial enabling leading-edge 4G and 5G broadband communications throughout Brazil and other countries in Latin America.
Inatel is an education, research, and technology development center created in 1965 and located in Minas Gerais state, in Brazil.
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is a global community of companies and organizations working together to accelerate the development and deployment of open, disaggregated, and standards-based technology solutions.
Under the terms of this partnership, Parallel Wireless will provide an Open RAN network enabling 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G utilizing Band 7 (2.6 GHz) for the trial. The company noted that this network field trial will enable new services and applications for consumers and businesses.
Regional VP of LATAM sales at Parallel Wireless Russell Ribeiro said: “We are excited to partner with Inatel and TIP to showcase our leading-edge cloud-native, O-RAN compliant, Open RAN solutions enabling 4G and 5G broadband connectivity, providing leading edge applications for the citizens of Brazil and other Latin American countries. We are starting this open field program with 4G and will evolve to 5G later this year. We believe this program is a very good showroom for MNOs throughout Latin America to come and see our platform in operation in a real field environment.”
Gleyson dos Santos, business development ppecialist at Inatel, said: “I am thrilled to participate in this field trial with Parallel Wireless and TIP where we will showcase how Open RAN technology enables robust wireless telecommunications products with improved software quality, less maintenance, faster adoption of new technologies and better user experiences.”
The field trial is using solutions from Comba and Dell Technologies, Parallel said.
Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, Parallel Wireless was formed in 2012, and currently has R&D centers in India, Israel, the US, UK, Canada as well as Sweden. The company is growing fast, and has had many Open RAN mobile wireless network implementations with operators such as BTEE, Hotspot, Vodafone in Asia and Africa, MTN, IpT, Millicom and Axiata Group, among others.
In February, Parallel Wireless announced the opening of a research and development (R&D) lab and testing facility in Ottawa, Canada to further develop 5G radio access equipment and expand the firm’s global presence.
Last year, Millicom has selected Parallel Wireless for the deployment of O-RAN-compliant Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) architecture in Latin America.
The O-RAN network will be deployed by Millicom’s subsidiary Tigo Colombia, with the aim of delivering 4G service coverage in 362 rural sites across the country.
