Telefónica this week announced the successful validation of its new Open RAN all-in-one 5G Standalone small cell.
The demonstration carried out by Node-H and Askey in Telefonica’s Technology & Automation Lab is a step forward to deliver highly performant, open, flexible, secure and reliable 5G services with small cells. With this ORAN-compliant solution Telefonica targets to increase the small cell ecosystem by delivering an innovative product that enables a wide range of use cases for different vertical markets.
The all-in-one 5G small cell, developed by Askey, is powered by the Qualcomm FSM100 5G RAN Platform; a high performance and low power solution for small cells, and with Node-H’s scalable radio access, security, and management software. This small cell is a complete 5G base station that can be connected either directly to Telefónica’s macro network or to a local private 5G core. Moreover, the modular architecture of the small cell logically separates the CU, DU and RU functionalities following open and standard interfaces, which adds extra flexibility to the solution. With this approach, Telefónica expands its Open RAN portfolio and is one step closer to deploying tailored and highly-performant 5G open networks across a wide range of deployment models and sizes ranging from just a handful of cells to large campus networks.
Telefónica is confident that enlarging the 5G standalone small cell ecosystem contributes to enabling the full potential of 5G technology, such as the huge data capacity and short latency times that are designed into 5G networks, adding capabilities to already existing use cases and exploiting new opportunities.
José Luis Esplá, Access and Devices Director in Telefónica GCTIO
Together with our technology partners, we are expanding the 5G SA ecosystem, helping our customers on their digital transformation process, driving innovation across different scenarios. With Telefónica’s open interfaces approach we are transforming the way connectivity and services are provided, with high flexibility and simplicity while ensuring the highest performance and efficiency.
Mike Cronin, CEO of Node-H
The business case for 5G private networks has received a huge boost through advances in the regulatory framework. This has the potential to unleash a large amount of private investment in a technology which merits that expenditure, bringing true 5G performance to those who can benefit from it.
