"An initial trial phase exploring OpenRAN solutions was conducted in MTN South Africa's lab, prior to the live site deployment," said Nitesh Singh, communication, media and technology leader at Accenture.
"This project provided us with an opportunity to share our experience with MTN through the Rakuten communications platform, and to jointly create the next-generation network that will set new standards for future mobile communications in South Africa and across the continent."
Operators around the world are experimenting with OpenRAN architectures as these would help decouple the components in the parts of the network connecting a user's device to the nearest tower, preventing vendor lock-in and potentially reducing costs.
OpenRAN standards are developed by two main industry bodies, the O-RAN Alliance and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP).
The O-RAN Alliance was founded by five companies - AT T, Orange, NTT Docomo, China Mobile and Deutsche Telekom - and has the most comprehensive body of OpenRAN standards available.
