Vodafone joins forces with Dell, Samsung, others for Open-RAN development

Vodafone said the partnerships would build on its new Open RAN lab in Newbury, southern England, and its planned digital skills hubs in Malaga, Spain, and Dresden, Germany.

Mobile and broadband operator Vodafone has selected six partners to build Europe's first commercial open RAN (radio access network), it said on June 14.

It said Dell Technologies, NEC Samsung, Wind River, Capgemini Engineering and Keysight Technologies would help it build one of the largest Open RAN networks in the world.

Vodafone said the partnerships would build on its new Open RAN lab in Newbury, southern England, and its planned digital skills hubs in Malaga, Spain, and Dresden, Germany.

Mobile operators and governments want to encourage the development of Open RAN technology to help more vendors enter a market dominated by Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia.

(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Sarah Young)