Mavenir and Baicells Announce xRAN Interface Interoperability Testing of Small Cells with Cloud RAN

Mavenir, focused on transforming mobile network economics for Communications Service Providers (CSPs), together with Baicells, announce xRAN interface interoperability testing of a Baicells Nova high-power outdoor small cell for LTE with Mavenir Cloud RAN.

This interworking demonstrates the power of open interfaces and the start of a new ecosystem for operators where they can truly purchase the RAN Software and remote radios to an 'open interface' breaking the legacy closed-wall approach.

Mavenir's Cloud RAN approach centralizes the baseband processing in a cloud native vBBU which can be combined or split into two parts known as the Central and Distributed units (CU & DU) with optimized fronthaul transmission between the RRU and the vBBU (CU & DU) over Ethernet. Mavenir vBBU software is easily decomposed into vCU-CP (Control Plane), vCU-UP (User Plane) and vDU which can be deployed in many configurations to meet the performance requirements of the application under consideration. The decomposed vBBU is fully integrated with Mavenir's vEPC, 5GC and CloudRangeTM NFV management and organization (MANO) framework operating on standard open-hardware platforms (COTS).

Coupled with Baicells' RRU supporting flexible fronthaul split for radio access, the solution is exclusively based on network virtualization (NFV/SDN) for centralized baseband processing in the cloud. Network-wide centralization, coordination and scalability are just some of the benefits.

"The highly modular software platform brings the benefits of cloud-based virtualization to 4G networks and can be software upgraded for 5G NSA and NR (non-standalone and new radio). This product combination will support 5G NR architecture in Jan 2019," said John Baker, SVP Business Development, Mavenir. "The objective is that we are helping the operators drive the cost down on the radio side, which is where they spend the majority of their money today, by having an open RAN."

"The xRAN interoperability testing between Baicells and Mavenir proves that the future of 5G has arrived," said Minchul Ho, Vice-President of Vertical Sales, Baicells. "The Cloud RAN architecture provides operators several benefits including reduced opex from maintenance, economies of scale efficiencies and vast improved performance due to greater coordination among cells."

The xRAN interface specification, released in September, specifies the User plane, Control Plane and the Management plane interfaces.