Viettel High Tech, the R&D arm of Vietnamese telco Viettel, announced the successful deployment and validation of the 5G Open RAN gNodeB, co-developed with Qualcomm, on Viettel's commercial network in Hanoi, Vietnam, this week. The state-owned telco claimed to be the world's first to deploy a 5G Open RAN network with the Qualcomm X100 5G RAN Accelerator Card and Qualcomm QRU100 5G RAN Platform on a live network, featuring real users and traffic.
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From Showcase to Deployment
Earlier this year, Viettel and Qualcomm showcased an initial design at the Mobile World Congress 2023 event in Barcelona, Spain, with this milestone accomplished within 8 months. Viettel notes that the installation site of this 5G gNodeB is within a network cluster that Viettel had deployed since 2021 in Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi, Vietnam.
Optimising Urban Networks
Additionally, the Viettel notes that "This area is a typical representation of the 5G deployment model in urban areas with dense populations and proximity to university campuses, boasting a high concentration of subscribers, ranging between 300-400 subscribers in a cell."
"Deploying within this high-traffic area facilitated the product optimisation process, enabling Viettel to quickly improve the products to meet stringent requirements for Viettel's networks."
Throughput Achieved
During the deployment, the 5G gNodeB was able to achieve a downlink throughput of 850 Mbps in real-network scenarios. Following the successful deployment validation in Vietnam, Viettel said it plans to introduce these products across its eleven international markets and extend to other global operators.
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Global Expansion
"Deploying a robust 5G infrastructure is not an easy task for network operators and equipment manufacturers. It is increasingly challenging to achieve a balance between factors such as high capacity, low latency, and reasonable costs," said Viettel.
"To enhance competitiveness and establish Viettel as a reputable global provider, we must continually improve our products and focus on key factors: high performance, Open RAN compliance, low power consumption, virtualisation, and cloud-native design."
