Yago Tenorio, Head of Network Strategy & Architecture, Vodafone and TIP Board Member
Vodafone surprised the TIP Summit audience in Amsterdam with news that it plans to issue a tender to upgrade its entire European mobile cell site footprint of 100,000 base stations to Open RAN technology in either 2020 or 2021. It is a major endorsement of the potential of Open RAN and is open to both traditional vendors and new open infrastructure players. Only a year ago it revealed the results of its RFI, issued alongside Telefonica through TIP, and quickly followed this up with live trials in Turkey. It is now beyond the stage of technology validation (which Yago regards as “very promising”) and is now investigating rollout models and viable commercial models, as well as learning how to deal with new deployment and operational challenges. It is calling on the supplier ecosystem to embrace ‘open’, to open their interfaces and stop verticalising.
Filmed at: TIP Summit, Amsterdam, November, 2019
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