Mavenir Telecom and Red Hat have supported Three to deploy Open RAN small cells in Glasgow, UK.

The Open RAN small cells were deployed in Glasgow city center after Three UK completed a live trial involving 18 small cells in the city.

According to Mavenir, the deployment of the small cells in a dense urban environment has been able to double 5G speeds, even during at peak times.

Mavenir noted that during the initial phase of the trial, both 4G and 5G speeds doubled during the busiest times of the day, as Three's UK 5G speeds hit 520Mbps.

Now that the trial is complete, the project will expand the total number of Open RAN small cell sites to 34.

The rollout of the small cells has been delivered as part of the SCONDA (Small Cells O-RAN in Dense Areas) project, a connectivity initiative backed by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Mavenir has supplied its full 4G and 5G Open RAN offering, which includes its OpenBeam small cell radios, which run on Red Hat OpenShift.

The small cells have been attached to existing street furniture in Glasgow, including lamp posts.

“This network densification project proves that the Open RAN layer built by Mavenir can efficiently and effectively meet the needs of Three UK and its customers in one of the busiest cities in the UK," said Brandon Larson, SVP, cloud and AI, Mavenir.

"This powerfully demonstrates that Open RAN can be fully integrated alongside traditional vendors – a breakthrough that will get the attention of radio network design teams around the world for the cost savings and flexibility it offers.”

Iain Milligan, chief network officer at Three UK, added: “We have pushed the boundaries and proven that the Open RAN approach is a hugely valuable addition to network design and deployment.

Milligan called the results of the trial "encouraging," while noting that it proves Open RAN can be optimized in dense urban environments.

Earlier this year, during MWC, Rick Mostaert, vice president of product management, Mavenir, told DCD that small cells form a key part of the company's Open RAN strategy.

"That's a big part of our strategy this year, we're telling everyone about Glasgow and small cells," said Mostaert.

The deployment of Mavenir's Open RAN small cells shows that multiple vendors can be present at once, notes Mostaert, who touts the opportunities around both indoor and outdoor street-level deployments.

"It's a way that you can introduce Open RAN into the network. And also for us, it's a way to establish credibility," he added. "Small cells are less complex."

Three isn't the only telco to utilize small cells with existing street furniture this week, as EE paired with Ontix to deploy 80 small cells across Westminster, London.