By : Basel Khaled

Telecom Egypt today announced a collaboration with Altiostar, Cisco, the Evenstar program and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) to trial OpenRAN solutions in Egypt.

This will serve as a proof of concept to highlight how OpenRAN can offer greater vendor flexibility in the future. The vision of a new, open, multivendor and disaggregated network is being largely embraced by Telecom Egypt and demonstrates its commitment to contribute to the OpenRAN community.

As part of the trial, Telecom Egypt will use an Evenstar radio unit in its initial OpenRAN deployment. Evenstar is a program focused on accelerating OpenRAN adoption by building general-purpose OpenRAN reference architecture for 4G and 5G networks.

By decoupling the radio unit (RU) hardware, distributed unit (DU), and control unit (CU) software of the RAN, which are traditionally sold as a package, Evenstar provides operators like Telecom Egypt with the flexibility to deploy solutions from an increasing number of technology providers, while expanding its network coverage in Egypt.

Additionally, Telecom Egypt will test Cisco’s Edge Computing Technology and Cisco’s fronthaul transport solution for the OpenRAN cell sites. This will provide validation of a complete, end-to-end OpenRAN network. Telecom Egypt will also test Altiostar’s Open vRAN common software platform for the DU and CU functions. This will mark another milestone in Telecom Egypt’s digital transformation goals.

Telecom Egypt is strengthening its position as a leading operator in the MEA region by testing these OpenRAN solutions and leveraging the partner ecosystem to drive new types of efficiencies towards excellence. As a member of TIP — a global community of companies and organizations driving infrastructure solutions to advance global connectivity — Telecom Egypt will share the results of the trial and key learnings with the TIP community through the TIP OpenRAN project group.

Adel Hamed, Managing Director and CEO, Telecom Egypt, said: “OpenRAN plays an important role in helping reduce costs and increase flexibility and component-level efficiency for operators globally.

Our hope is that early positive experiences will lead to greater commercial adoption of these initial products which will, in turn, help expand the network of OpenRAN suppliers. With the specialist help of Cisco and by working with partners like in the Evenstar ecosystem, we intend to drive disruptive technology innovations to keep OpenRAN competitive in the long term.

We look forward to more successes with Altiostar, Cisco, Evenstar partners and TIP to deliver on our promise and ambitious plans for a fully digitized Egypt society.”