Mavenir Unveils World’s First 2G Containerized Architecture

Mavenir, on Tuesday, announced that it has developed a containerized GSM 2G architecture, and also announced its commercial readiness.

Mavenir Shows a Containerized 2G Architecture

The networks company has developed the product using an enhanced fronthaul (FH) interface between the Multi Radio Access Technology (MRAT), Remote Radiohead Unit (RRU) and the Distributed Unit (DU).

Mavenir also successfully demonstrated full frequency hopping, multiple TRX’s, multiple codecs, ciphering and handovers, in readiness for commercial deployments.

CSPs require commercial and cost effective replacements for legacy networks, and that has driven the development of the product. Mavenir said that as CSPs look to "diversify the supply chain", the demand for cost-effective solutions increases.

Recently, the company had acquired ip.access, another network service provider. In the statement, Mavenir mentioned that it has combined 2G tech that came with the acquisition; it has also containerized the GSM layer 1, 2 and 3 protocols of 2G in the DU microservices architecture.

Now, the solution they have developed can also operate alongside, and on the same platform, with the 4G/5G network architecture.

Also, the company said that it has developed an enhanced 2G interface MRAT protocol on top of the O-RAN Alliance-based enhanced Common Public Radio Interfaces (eCPRI).  This solution comes with minimal adaptation; it will also make this combined interface openly available by standardizing the interface in the O-RAN Alliance.

Furthermore, the company said that its containerized solution is scalable; CSPs can choose either the in-house Webscale Platform or other 3^rd party webscale platforms.

Pardeep Kohli, President and CEO, Mavenir, said, “Mavenir is excited to have developed and demonstrated a world’s first, viability of an Open vRAN containerized architecture for 2G with the addition of multiple air interface protocols using an O-RAN based architecture”.

He added, "this milestone enables us to readily support operators in making a complete swap from proprietary Radio Access Network (RAN) solutions to open interfaces, and virtualized Web-Scale architectures.”

The company added that it will do its part to standardize the fronthaul interface for 2G.