Argela implements RAN slicing over Turk Telekom’s LTE-A network

Turk Telekom and Argela have announced the successful incorporation of ProgRAN – Argela’s fully programmable RAN architecture allowing for dynamic radio access network (RAN) slicing – into Turk Telekom’s commercial LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) network. The limited deployment covers an enterprise area in Istanbul’s commercial centre, Maslak, with plans to extend the demonstration to a second location in the capital, Ankara. In addition, going forward the two companies are planning to extend their RAN slicing demonstration to include centralised RAN (C-RAN) platforms. Bulent Kaytaz, Argela CEO, said: ‘5G needs to be built in a flexible way so that capacity and coverage are allocated in virtual RAN slices to dynamically meet the demands of each potential use case … A RAN architecture built on the pillars of software-defined networking and network virtualisation is necessary to effectively use the limited wireless resources amongst increasingly diverse use cases. At Argela we have developed ProgRAN with 5G in mind, but also made sure that it is operational on today’s LTE networks so operators do not have to wait until 2020 to start using the network slicing technology. We are thrilled to see it in action on Turk Telekom’s commercial LTE-A network.’