Network equipment supplier albis-elcon, part of the listed UET AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), is expanding its partnership with manufacturer Advantech (TWSE: 2395.TW), a global leader in industrial IoT, towards open mobile technologies for 5G and 6G networks. The companies made the announcement at the IEEE 5G++ Summit in Dresden and presenting the first joint OPEN RAN solution.
albis-elcon has been working with Advantech in the field of open network technologies for almost two years, enabling disaggregation, the separation of hardware, operating system and application. As a result, fixed and now mobile operators benefit from more flexibility and less dependency in the choice of devices and applications.
The Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) and Virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) technologies have the potential to make network functions available more quickly via open interfaces and to increase the efficiency of 5G networks.
Here, the albis-elcon software suite uSphir is used as a link between hardware and application and, with the virtualization of network functions, provides the basis for an open ecosystem environment. If requested by the customer, albis-elcon also assumes responsibility for interoperability, integration, implementation and operation.
Advantech will supply albis-elcon with its SKY-8000 Edge Servers for Open RAN and vRAN. These carrier-grade servers have been designed to meet high performance and high availability network needs in rugged and compact platforms that can be deployed anywhere in the network. In the future, it is planned to expand the virtualization ecosystem together with Advantech and extend it to include 5G and 6G networks.
Entrepreneurial future in software and service with open hardware
“We see in the future growth with our own software solution and service with open hardware from our company and in collaboration with partners. To deliver an optimal solution to customers as they grow, we are now bringing ORAN systems in collaboration with Advantech. I am excited about the expansion of our partnership,” said Werner Neubauer, CEO of UET AG and Managing Director of albis-elcon. “After the introduction of gigabit real-time transmission and artificial intelligence with machine learning, open networks offer the next big opportunity for network evolution.”
Open networks with virtualization offer the operation of multiple network services on only one single hardware. Thus, a major benefit of virtualization is the reduction of devices. In the future, multiple applications can run on one device. This represents an important contribution to reducing energy consumption and making networks more sustainable.