Orange starts testing 'zero touch' 5G standalone network at Lannion research centre

News Wireless France 30 JUN 2021
Orange starts testing 'zero touch' 5G standalone network at Lannion research centre

Orange announced the official launch of a new research project in July, describing it as Europe’s first fully cloud-native 5G standalone network. Running over a two-year period, the experimental network in Lannion (Britanny) will reach further locations in 2022 and be tested by several hundred end-users. It will explore the benefit of a ‘zero-touch’ approach, relying on software-enabled automation and artificial intelligence to minimise human intervention in its operations.

Built on a single Kubernetes-based infrastructure, the network will combine elements from several partners, including the 5G Open RAN software developed by Mavenir. Orange has also selected Casa Systems (cloud 5G SA core network), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (cloud 5G SA subscriber data management), Dell Technologies (servers supporting RAN centralised unit, distributed unit and core) and Xiaomi (devices) as partners in the project.

Network and service management will be automated using orchestration open source tools from GitLab and ONAP. The scope of the forthcoming trials also covers OSS and BSS integration aspects.

Categories:

Wireless

Companies:

Orange,  Casa Systems,  Mavenir,  Xiaomi,  Hewlett Packard Enterprise,  Dell Technologies

Countries:

France

Tags:

IT - applications, Network equipment, Network operations services, Wholesale, 5G, Licences & sales agreement, Research and development

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