Vodafone UK has decided to deploy Open RAN at about 2,600 mobile base stations in the UK, as part of its Huawei swap-out strategy, media reports said. It is reported that Chinese telecom Huawei accounts for 35 percent of Vodafone’s total UK RAN estate.
The move by Vodafone UK will set them as a trailblazer for Open RAN, in the wake of Huawei’s blacklisting. The UK government has imposed a deadline of 2022 for installing Open Ran in 2,600 sites in rural Wales and the southwest of England.
The company believes that Open RAN can be used for rural deployments, however, extensive R&D has to be carried out before it can be trusted with high capacity urban use-cases. The move will strengthen the UK government and help exclude Huawei equipment out of the country’s 5G networks by 2027.
The new development has the capability to support a government’s ambition to rebuild a foothold in the telecom’s equipment market. Scott Petty, chief technology officer at Vodafone UK, told the media, “This commitment can get Open RAN ready for prime time. Although open RAN was still a nascent technology more suited to rural coverage than dense urban areas, including such a large chunk of its network would create an opportunity for it to push into the mainstream. Spanish telecom operator Telefónica is also exploring greater use of open RAN systems for future.”
The blacklisting Of Huawei by the US is a major blow for many global telecom operators.