Nokia, in collaboration with Orange, applies cloud benefits to radio access in large-scale trial, preparing for future 5G networks

Press Release

• First Cloud RAN trial in operational LTE network using Orange's own cloud infrastructure platform
• Trial in live network in Poland with commercial traffic on largest configuration so far, first of its kind in Europe on operator's own infrastructure
• Key milestone towards Orange's future 5G cloud architecture

19 June 2018

Espoo, Finland - Nokia has completed a live network trial in Poland in collaboration with Orange to validate the benefits of cloud-optimized radio access networks for the smooth evolution to next-generation 5G technologies.

The two companies trialed Cloud RAN technology to prepare for the eventual introduction of a distributed cloud architecture for 5G by Orange. A distributed, cloud-based radio access network architecture like Nokia's AirScale Cloud RAN provides capacity where needed and prepares the network for the deployment of new 5G access technology as part of a multi-layered architecture.

The trial took place from March to the beginning of May in Poland, with radio sites in the city of Chelm and the virtualized part of the baseband running in a data center in Lublin, around 70 km away. As a result, Nokia's AirScale Cloud Base Station provided equally strong network performance on both Nokia's reference cloud infrastructure and on Orange's own cloud environment.

Nokia's architecture splits baseband processing functionality across the radio cell sites and data center using its AirScale Cloud Base Station. Time-critical functions are performed at the cell site and connected via Ethernet fronthaul - allowing the operator to use its existing transport network - while centralized software hosted at the data center cost-efficiently performs non real-time functions.

Nokia AirScale Cloud RAN provides the flexibility needed for future services and requirements for 5G, Internet of Things, low latency services and end-to-end slicing.

About the trial

• Nokia AirScale Cloud Base Station, a virtual base station for 4G and 5G, running 4G technology via Ethernet fronthaul
• Orange's NGPop cloud infrastructure
• Nokia AirFrame Data Center platform designed to meet stringent radio access capacity, performance and latency requirements
• Nokia Cloud Infrastructure for Radio/Real Time
• Nokia NetAct monitoring Cloud RAN and classical RAN in the commercial network

Piotr Jaworski, CTO of Orange Poland, said: "During this trial, Orange Poland has successfully trialed virtualized RAN architectures in collaboration with Nokia and investigated the impact on network operations. The quality and performance observed during the trial give confidence on the RAN virtualization and is a critical step for us towards 5G."