Nordic operator Telenor said that it has established a 5G Standalone core environment using a vendor-neutral platform.
“The main component of 5G SA is the 5G mobile core, the ‘brain’ of the 5G system. Unfortunately, most 5G core deployments are still single vendor dependent, with strong dependencies on that vendor’s underlying proprietary architecture. This single-vendor dependency can be a killer for innovation. It restricts open collaboration from the broader 5G ecosystem of companies developing new technology, use cases, and services that the market expects,” said Patrick Waldemar, VP and head of technology for Telenor Research.
The telco highlighted that carriers are starting to deploy 5G SA to achieve the full benefits of 5G, such as network slicing, low latency, enhanced security and network data analytics.
The multi-vendor environment consists of solutions from Oracle, Casa Systems, Enea and Kaloom, all running on Red Hat Openshift.
“To protect the 5G infrastructure from cyber threats, we deployed Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud Compute, and their next generation Firewall is also securing Internet connectivity for mobile devices. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform is being used as a scalable automation system, while Emblasoft is providing automated network testing capabilities. The 5G New Radio (NR) is from Huawei,” said Waldemar.
“We believes that such a multi-vendor environment will stimulate innovation, reduce cost of the infrastructure, increase competition and accelerate the development of an open 5G-ecosystem which in turn will enable a range of new services for Telenor’s consumers, industry and government customers,” the executive added.
Telenor is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company with operations in Scandinavia and Asia. At the end of 2019, Telenor held controlling interests in mobile operations in Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan.
