Several telecom industry stakeholders have come together and decided to set up the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) to simplify mobile infrastructure.
Telecom network maker Nokia, Facebook, Intel, Deutsche Telekom, EE, Globe Telecom, SK Telecom and other operators, equipment providers, systems integrators and technology companies are part of this alliance.
TIP aims to accelerate global growth of telecommunications infrastructure by driving innovation in collaboration with the industry.
Nokia wants to promote transparency and open architecture, and explore new business models to improve people’s lives through better connectivity.
The TIP promise is to simplify network and product architecture to gain higher performance, simpler network operation and increased automation. The industry will benefit from a growing ecosystem that will provide connectivity to places that previously were unconnected.
Nokia’s planned contributions to TIP include publishing an open specification for the operability interface associated with the radio access run time environment, which traditionally is vendor specific. This open interface will allow development of innovative new radio solutions for new market segments, allowing operators to “mix-and-match” between vendors within a given end-to-end-solution.
The open interface will also enable innovation for simpler cell site or node implementations that can be built and deployed by 3rd parties. In order to further encourage 3rd party participation, Nokia will provide a program to cross-check compatibility with the open interface.
Nokia aims to provide an open base station hardware platform, and a reference design and hardware specification of it. The initial specifications are targeted to be available in the first half of 2016, and to be enhanced gradually. Nokia will provide components, modules or a reference platform, as well as complete base stations, to parties that want to build TIP Access Points.
The contributions of TIP Project Groups are expected to result in the dramatic reduction of overhead associated with providing mobile coverage by simplifying network build-outs. It will be possible for operators, enterprises and other vertical players to build faster and simpler mobile broadband spot coverage in rural, suburban, enterprise, and urban environments.
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