Nokia completes MEA’s first Cloud RAN trial using In-Line acceleration in etisalat by e&’s network

Nokia and etisalat by e& have announced the successful completion of MEA's first trial of Cloud RAN using In-Line acceleration over Hewlett Packard Enterprise's (HPE) ProLiant DL110 Gen11.

The trial, which utilized etisalat by e&'s existing mid-band carrier in the n78 (3.5GHz) band over its 5G standalone network, aims to enable a robust and responsive 5G experience for end users in the region.

"This important trial with etisalat by e& highlights the maturity of our anyRAN approach using Cloud RAN with In-Line accelerator architecture. Nokia's approach ensures performance consistency between Cloud RAN and purpose-built RAN and provides our customers with more choice and flexibility. Our solution will empower etisalat by e& to meet diverse market demands swiftly, delivering a future-proof 5G network that will enable innovative services through dynamic network slicing and automation," said Mark Atkinson, Head of RAN at Nokia.

In-Line acceleration offers several benefits in terms of power efficiency, scalability, flexibility, feature parity, cloud nativeness, lower total cost of ownership (TCO) as well as ease of integration into any server and cloud environment.

The successful completion of an end-to-end Cloud RAN L3 data call confirms the feature richness and high performance of Nokia's anyRAN approach that makes Cloud RAN perform consistently with purpose-built RAN, enabled by common software and In-Line acceleration.

Commenting on this milestone, Marwan Bin Shakar, Senior Vice President of Access Network Development at etisalat by e&, said, "We are committed to technological innovations that directly impact our customers and pave the way for revolutionizing the industry. As part of our latest collaboration, Nokia's Cloud RAN solution will enhance our 5G mobile broadband network by combining the power of cloud computing with the flexibility of radio access networks. It's the first in the region and paves the way for enhanced connectivity and service delivery, ultimately providing end-users with a more robust and responsive 5G experience."