Singaporean operator StarHub has recently conducted what it claims to be the country’s inaugural Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) call on its 5G network. The achievement comes as part of a demonstration in collaboration with Japanese NTT Docomo. Other firms, including Keysight Technologies and Fujitsu, also participated in the Open RAN field trial.
“With the successful demonstration of our Open RAN, in collaboration with NTT Docomo, we are thrilled to be the first to bring it to market, marking this significant milestone for StarHub and Singapore,” said Ayush Sharma, CTO of StarHub. “This not only underscores our commitment to delivering first-of-its-kind innovations that afford enterprises greater value, flexibility and customisability to choose what is best to meet their needs, but also lets us vastly rethink how we approach network infrastructure differently.”
StarHub also noted that its Open RAN technology underwent rigorous validation by Keysight Technologies. Through Keysight’s UeSIM UE Emulation RAN Solutions, which validates end-to-end RAN performance by emulating real network traffic over radio, StarHub’s Open RAN successfully performed a thorough validation of DOCOMO OREX packages to ensure network reliability, performance and implementation, validating the Open RAN’s readiness for market adoption.
StarHub’s Open RAN achieved a downlink and uplink throughput of up to 1.295 Gbps and 73.5 Mbps respectively, with an average latency of 15ms, the Asian telco said.
“On top of giving MNOs the freedom of choice and lowering operational costs, Open RAN allows MNOs to keep up with the latest technology, freeing them from any particular provider’s roadmap,” said Sadayuki Abeta, chief Open RAN strategist at NTT Docomo.
In February, StarHub said its outdoor 5G network achieved more than 99% coverage nearly four years after the carrier introduced 5G technology. In 2020, StarHub’s 5G service only had 50% of network coverage across the country.
In April of 2020, Singtel and a joint venture between StarHub Mobile and M1 had secured licenses to build two nationwide standalone (SA) 5G networks in Singapore. The winners were each allocated 100 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band.
Last year, StarHub embarked upon a multi-cloud network transformation project to boost the delivery, scalability, and performance of its mobile, broadband, and entertainment services. AWS, Google Cloud, NAVER Cloud, and Nokia had been appointed for support in this initiative. The project was dubbed Cloud Infinity and will deliver a “low-latency” and “simplified” architecture for more dynamic telecoms services, the telco said.
Source: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20240909/open_ran/starhub-demos-o-ran-singapore-ntt-docomo