Having decided to continue operations in India, Vodafone Idea looks to more innovation in the RAN from Mavenir.
The second largest carrier, after Reliance Jio, will deploy time division duplex and Massive MIMO to provide coverage for major cities this year.
Vodafone Idea has deployed Mavenir’s cloud-native open RAN software on multiple cell sites, which have been carrying commercial traffic since December 2019.
Disaggregation
The operator said it has the largest massive MIMO deployment in India. Its CTO, Vishant Vora, explained that now it had disaggregated strategic core network elements, the next step was to do the same in the RAN.
He said, “We are happy to partner Mavenir for this initiative, which has a potential to not only reduce costs but also create exciting new capabilities customised to our business requirements.”
Elsewhere
Mavenir also provides Rakuten Mobile’s virtualised wireless network in Japan, where it is hoped the reduced costs will support the new operator’s disruptive pricing.
It is also looking to help DISH do the same in the US.