Telefonica continued to push its open RAN strategy, striking an agreement to lead a collaboration with a group of industry players to develop and deploy the technology in 4G and 5G networks.

In a statement, Telefonica said it was joining forces with Altiostar, Giga Tera Communications, Intel, Supermicro and Xilinx to foster the development of open RAN in the mobile networks, as part of the operator’s goal to launch trials in the UK, Germany, Spain and Brazil this year.

In October 2019, Telefonica invested an undisclosed sum in Altiostar, an open virtualised RAN vendor, and the latter’s participation in the new group deepens its ties with the operator.

The investment was one of several moves Telefonica has made in the open RAN space in recent times. It was an early member of the O-RAN Alliance, formed in 2018, and made no secret of its goal for RAN systems to become interoperable, in a challenge to the incumbent vendor model.

Materialise open RAN
Telefonica explained the latest collaboration was designed to progress towards the design, development, optimisation testing and industrialisation of open RAN technologies across its footprint this year.

The overall goal will revolve around ensuring the necessary procedures and testing activities required are completed to “materialise open RAN in our networks”, said the operator.

Commenting in the statement, Pierre Kahhale, VP of field operations at Altiostar, said Telefonica had long been “championing” the technology.

“By bringing together the best-of-breed innovation, Telefonica is looking to achieve this vision into their network,” he said.