In a separate release today, JMA announced that XRAN software is being utilized in a live dense urban network application with Telecom Italia Mobile as part of collaborative work between the companies on 5G mobility innovation.

“Cost, simplicity, footprint, power, and cooling changes dramatically with XRAN,” said Todd Landry, Corporate Vice President of Product and Market Strategy at JMA Wireless. “XRAN is designed from its inception to close the gap between rapidly growing in-building mobile connectivity demands and today’s complex, proprietary hardware solutions unable to evolve and adapt for multi-operator services.” 

The XRAN software platform integrates with the TEKO RF Distribution platform via high capacity digital fiber connectivity, eliminating costly layers of analog equipment and cabling, and significantly reducing the footprint, power and cooling requirements. This combined solution is like no other in the market today, and provides an entirely new approach for wireless systems in enterprise buildings, large venues, and highly densified areas of cities.

“Full virtualization of the entire stack has been elusive due to the complexity of the technology,” said Joe Madden, President of Mobile Experts. “XRAN has delivered full virtualization and gives operators a more flexible, low-cost platform they can control. This opens the door for MNOs and Enterprises - providing an opportunity for enterprises to invest in solutions to provide coverage for their venues.”

JMA Wireless has also become a member of The Linux Foundation, to participate in the developing ecosystem on its Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) that will drive towards software-based virtual network functions and is aligning on contributions to new 5G standards.

“JMA Wireless is a welcome addition to LFN's industry-leading member roster,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, The Linux Foundation. “As JMA Wireless' innovations in virtualized RAN technology will help enable full-stack virtualization across the industry, they will play an integral role in working collaboratively with the LFN community to further accelerate open source networking. We look forward to leveraging JMA's expertise to help shape the future of open network transformation.”

Key Attributes of the XRAN Adaptive Baseband Platform:

First All Software Baseband: XRAN Adaptive Baseband software was engineered as the full baseband protocol stack, Layers 1 thru 3, in software, enabling the use of common compute servers and eliminating the need for additional hardware-based accelerators for the lower layers of the baseband function. This is a critical step to drive out cost and increase flexibility of the RAN.  As a technology partner in the Intel® Network Builders ecosystem, XRAN is optimized for standard Intel® Xeon® processors found throughout enterprise and cloud data centers.

Adaptive Capacity: Leveraging embedded intelligence XRAN can increase or reduce capacity at a site based on how many mobile devices are present. Compared to current day, hardware-based solutions that are fixed and leave resources stranded, XRAN Adaptive Baseband applies resources to sites when and where they are needed, increasing utilization efficiency dramatically.

“We estimate that current RAN utilization across venues is around 25 percent efficient, largely due to fixed hardware assets that become stranded because they cannot be redistributed,” said Landry. “XRAN’s intelligent software architecture makes capacity elastic, empowering XRAN baseband computing when and where needed, which will radically shift efficiency into the upper quadrant.”

Modernized Intelligent Operations: XRAN significantly reduces operational costs by providing IT-centric orchestration and policy-based operational tools. Configuration, policy setting, and monitoring are founded on web-centric interfaces to provide easy visualization and streamlined workflows. It is designed for operators to adapt it to their operations hierarchy with flexible role based definitions. XRAN’s Operations Platform is also compliant with 3GPP and industry standard north-bound interfaces; therefore, XRAN can blend with existing network services, OSS, and BSS systems within the network.

Anywhere in the Network: XRAN’s architecture enables operators to deploy in central data centers, within regional sites, on campuses, or in MDF or technical rooms within individual buildings. Regardless of where it is deployed, XRAN takes advantage of central operations and its elastic resource intelligence. This enables operators to capitalize on the best economics for backhaul or front haul connectivity, and the benefits of XRAN cloud economics. 

Standards-based High-Performance Mobility: Network compatibility and the ability to deliver faster mobile performance are key for next generation networks.  XRAN is designed to comply with 3GPP standards, including carrier aggregation capabilities, IoT device connectivity, and support for both existing and forthcoming spectrums. The result is a platform that can also achieve gigabit-per-second performance for mobile user environments progressing towards 5G.

Security and Information Assurance:  Ensuring information exchanges and software systems are impervious to outside intrusions is critical. XRAN is compliant with 3GPP security and information assurance standards, utilizes state of the art cyber security mechanisms, and best practices for multi-level role based access control and authorization.