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The operator has been steadily expanding its Open RAN rollout over the course of this year, now claiming to have one of the widest coverage areas in Europe for the emerging technology
At the start of 2021, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, and Vodafone all signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreeing to collaborate and jointly focus on developing Open RAN technology. Not to be left out, TIM became the fifth signatory of the MoU just weeks later and since then has been advancing steadily with its Open RAN drive.
By April, TIM had announced that the first city in Italy to adopt Open RAN technology in a live network would be the town of Faenza, situated in the Emilia-Romagna region in the northeast. In September, two more cities – Turin and Matera – also had Open RAN equipment deployed and activated on their live network.
TIM’s role in developing Open RAN technology became even more apparent later in the year, with the operator announcing the creation of its own dedicated Open RAN lab in Turin, designed as a testing ground for new Open RAN solutions, both for themselves and for their wider partner ecosystem.
To date, TIM is the only Italian operator to have deployed Open RAN technology in a live network.
Now, it appears that TIM’s Open RAN ambitions are to go even further this year, with the company announcing that Open RAN mobile network coverage has now been launched in Saluzzo, in the south-west Piedmont region.
According to TIM, the deployment will not only allow the network to become more flexible in terms of future vendor selection, but also speed up the deployment of 5G and edge computing services through new centralised and in-cloud functions.
Combined with their deployments in Faenza, Matera, and Turin, TIM claims that they have “one of the most extensive Open RAN coverages in Europe”.
The deployment makes use of RAN software from JMA Wireless, radio-frequency tech from Microelectronics Technology, hardware from Dell Technologies, and Cisco for transport to the site. Italtel has also supported TIM in term of system integration.
How will Open RAN change the face of Italian mobile connectivity? Find out at this year’s Connected Italy event
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