Nokia has partnered with Saudi infrastructure provider Tawal to complete a live demo of a multi-tenant, shareable Open RAN Edge-cloud platform.
In doing so, the pair claims the demo is the first of its kind.
The purpose of the demo is to allow mobile carriers and enterprises to launch 5G services at significantly lower costs than currently possible.
Carried out in Riyadh, the demo saw Nokia's 5G AirScale Indoor Radios paired with Dell PowerEdge XR8000 servers, which hosted virtualized CU/DU software in Nokia’s anyRAN framework.
According to Tawal, the trial proved how the company can offer its active infrastructure as a service to operators, while Nokia's anyRAN architecture is able to run anyRAN workloads on an open Edge cloud.
Tawal's infrastructure operates as a neutral host model, meaning that it can provide spectrum, Open RAN broadband, and radio to multiple service providers. This will also allow those providers to share the same Edge cloud platform, reducing energy consumption and freeing spectrum.
Traditional single operator rollouts risk duplicating infrastructure, notes Tawal, delaying service availability, and driving up Capex.
“Neutral hosts must add value beyond steel and concrete. By partnering with Nokia, we can offer Saudi operators an on-demand, pay-as-you-grow 5G platform that cuts their TCO and accelerates digital transformation for the Kingdom’s giga projects," said Abdulrahman Al Moaiqel, chief commercial officer at Tawal.
