Telkom Kenya, Rakuten Symphony and Airspan announced on Tuesday that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on testing Open RAN technology in Kenya.
The MoU covers knowledge transfer, development and testing of 4G and 5G technologies. Rakuten Symphony and Airspan will be responsible for overseeing partners during the testing process.
Rakuten Symphony will supply the centralized unit and distributed unit infrastructure, along with its OSS platform, while Airspan will supply 4G and 5G radio units and the mobile core. Telkom Kenya will provide the required local resources and facilities
Telkom Kenya CEO Mugo Kibati said the telco aims to leverage the knowledge transfer and the Open RAN tests to enhance the use of automation and AI-powered technologies in its own network.
“We are proud to be investing in the development of our people through the collaborative testing capabilities that we will be building within this consortium to explore the possible benefits of Open RAN in our mobile network,” he said in a statement.
