Parallel Wireless announced its partnership with Etisalat to deliver the world’s first cloud-native O-RAN compliant 5G 4G 3G 2G Open RAN solutions.
Afghanistan has seen a strong increase in mobile broadband with penetration reaching 22 percent in 2019 up from 1 percent in 2013.

Parallel Wireless Open RAN solution is delivering proof points of performance, quality of service, and cost benefits on six continents.

The Open RAN radio hardware ecosystem provides Remote Radio Units (RRUs) that will allow Etisalat to replace 2G / 3G / 4G systems with white box solutions that can be upgraded to 5G in the future.

Intel’s 3rd Gen Intel Xeon scalable processors delivered in Supermicro’s servers bring a future-ready architecture for a Distributed Unit (DU) and a Central Unit (CU), deployed at the network’s edge. The virtual Baseband Unit (vBBU) resources can be shared among multiple RRUs on-site in multi-carrier 1-sector, 3-sector, or 6-sector configurations to achieve optimal resource pooling for TCO savings.

The combination of Open RAN, virtualization, and automation will enable Etisalat to meet the needs of customers most cost-effectively in Central Asia, Hatem Bamatraf, chief technology officer-International, Etisalat Group, said.

Etisalat Group is one of the world’s leading telecom groups in emerging markets. With consolidated net revenue at AED 51.7 billion and consolidated net profit of AED 9.0 billion for 2020, its high credit ratings reflect the company’s strong balance sheet and proven long-term performance.

Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, Etisalat provides services to 154 million subscribers in 16 countries across the Middle East, Asia and Africa.