TIM, first in Europe and among the first companies in the world, is experimenting the Virtual Radio Access Network (vRAN) technology on live network, in collaboration with Altiostar. The vRAN technology is seen as the foundation for evolution towards 5G, providing elastic scalability with a common NFV+SDN enabled platform.
TIM is trialing the technology to make it possible to improve the quality of the current mobile network and increase its efficiency. The new architecture, successfully tested first at the innovation laboratories in Turin and now in the field at Saluzzo, represents an important transformation of the mobile access network, making it possible to fully exploit LTE advanced functionalities, by coordinating signals from various radio base stations (Carrier Aggregation inter-site and Comp inter-site), using a centralized and virtualized infrastructure.
For this initiative, a virtual server has been installed in Turin, more than 60 kilometres away from the Saluzzo antennas, which has demonstrated its ability to coordinate radio base stations even at considerable distances, without affecting connection and performance, thanks to efficient transmission techniques based on Ethernet fronthauling.
The flexibility, the scalability and the possibility of introducing algorithms developed by third parties for the new virtualized architecture enable efficient management of increasing mobile traffic and its rapid changes through the introduction of new SON (Self Organizing Network) functionalities such as innovative methods of automatic network configuration developed by TIM and tested on the Altiostar vRAN solution.
