Full-stack 5G RAN specialist Software Radio Systems (SRS) has revealed it has successfully deployed its srsRAN Enterprise 5G at Altice Labs’ innovation hub in Aveiro, Portugal.
SRS sees private networks as fundamentally offering high-performance, flexible and scalable connectivity that can be tailored to enterprises’ individual needs. The deployment is designed to demonstrate the capabilities of srsRAN Enterprise 5G in real-world private 5G deployments, featuring mobility across a multi-cell scenario and delivering advanced positioning features.
Developed in-house at SRS to address the specific needs of the private and enterprise 5G market, srsRAN Enterprise 5G comprises a portable, scalable, full-stack centralised unit and distributed unit (CU and DU) software offering for streamlined private network deployments. The Open RAN service is designed to ensure indoor and outdoor connectivity across large deployments and support for diverse networks of users.
The Open RAN deployment – including advanced positioning capabilities in multi-cell scenarios – has integrated SRS’s CU and DU software with O-RAN radio units from various suppliers, and the Raemis 5G core from Druid Software, enabling an enterprise-ready 5G offering that uses Kubernetes (K8s) clusters to efficiently manage and scale srsRAN in the network, ensuring a flexible and robust private 5G offering.
The Altice Labs 5G laboratory evaluates advanced network and service offerings before they reach the market. The company develops its own broadband access and Advanced 5G services, with passive optical network (PON) technology as a key strategic focus.
The testbed also incorporates offerings from third-party suppliers, alongside open-source components such as Open5GS, OSM and OpenSlice. The project hopes to fuel testing and experimentation of core technologies and architectures, facilitating innovative services and businesses, and become a key enabler for future B5G vertical services and applications.
The work was carried out under the auspices of the European Commission-funded Imagine-B5G project. This has focused on the evolution of mobile telecom networks Beyond-5G (B5G) to look at opportunities for Europe to establish leadership in innovation by addressing the requirements of use cases from several sectors.
It aims to equip European verticals with facilities that will increase their ability for innovation, digitisation and driving European economies, deploying concurrent trials that will serve to prove operators are able to deliver on the stringent technical requirements of B5G/6G applications.
The projects will also use the pilots with verticals and cross-vertical industries to demonstrate Europe’s B5G evolution and leadership in advanced 5G technologies and architectures, preparing and maximising widespread acceptance and adoption by users of B5G services in European economies.
Altice Labs general manager Paulo Firmeza said his company’s participation in the work recognised the relevance of private 5G networks for business customers.
“[It also shows] the importance of establishing close collaborations with partners such as srsRAN to bring the market innovative, useful solutions, integrated with our own 5G products, also Open RAN aligned,” he added. “Addressing 5G features like 5G-based location, answers limitations of GNSS systems, namely with indoor and urban scenarios, relevant in some industry scenarios.”
SRS CEO Paul Sutton said: “Our work with Altice Labs helps to demonstrate the power of Open RAN and virtualised RAN to deliver future-proof, enterprise-grade 5G solutions that can be deployed quickly and cost-effectively.”
