Turkcell partners Mavenir for OpenRAN vRAN on path towards 5G

Turkish mobile operator Turkcell has partnered cloud network software provider Mavenir to test and deploy an OpenRAN virtual RAN (vRAN) system. Turkcell CTO Gediz Sezgin noted: ‘At Turkcell, we have reached more than 60% virtualisation in our mobile core network. We already take great advantage of what virtualisation has to offer and are willing to extend the benefits of virtualisation coupled with open RAN for the next step in Turkcell’s Radio Access Network evolution … on open vRAN towards 5G.’

A press release states that Mavenir’s OpenRAN vRAN solution is based on ‘fully containerised Centralised Unit (CU)/Distributed Unit (DU) and Open FH [Fronthaul] with Split 7.2 in trial and planned deployments, which will become a first in the industry’, adding that vRAN is being deployed on Turkcell Telco Cloud infrastructure – ‘the first workload that will be going live on Turkcell Edge Cloud’. The release further notes that: ‘the solution centralises baseband processing in cloud-native virtualised baseband units (vBBU) and exploits fronthaul over ethernet between vBBU and multiple remote radio units (RRU). The Mavenir vRAN architecture and platform can support 4G as well as both the NSA and SA implementations of 5G NR. With open interfaces, the solution has the flexibility to support various deployment scenarios – including functional split 2 for enterprises and split 2 & 7 for macro cells. It can also support massive MIMO, edge micro services and network slicing for 5G NR.’