Verizon is tapping upstart radio access network (RAN) equipment vendor Verana Networks for its plans to solve challenging millimeter-wave (mmWave)-based 5G deployments by both testing its equipment and investing money into the vendor. The move could pave the way for Verizon to expand coverage of its mmWave-based 5G network.

Verana’s Integrated Access and Backhaul platform packages a mmWave antenna that can support both end-user facing connectivity like a traditional small-cell site and act as part of a wireless mesh backhaul service. This allows the product to reduce the need for individual wired backhaul connections to each mmWave antenna.

Amit Jain, chief commercial officer at Verana, explained each IAB node is basically a three-sector antenna that provides 360-degree coverage similar to a traditional cell site. Those antennas can also connect to other antennas within range to backhaul traffic to a central antenna with fiber connectivity.

“This reduces the upfront cost of deployment by increasing the flexibility in site selection,” Jain told SDxCentral in an interview. “Today, when they're searching for sites, a big consideration is always if you can bring fiber and backhaul to the site. And if they can't then they kind of disregard it. Now they can actually have more flexibility in where they can put these sites and thereby offer more coverage.”

As noted, one of the bigger challenges for using mmWave spectrum is its limited reach and propagation characteristics of those bands. This requires operators to install a large number of these antennas to cover a specific area compared to lower-band spectrum.

However, each one of these antennas needs to have power and backhaul connectivity. Power requirements are typically easier to deal with as many of these small antennas have been placed in public right-of-ways that include utility poles or light poles, leaving fiber connectivity as the bigger challenge.

The Verana platform allows a number of its IAB devices to work in mesh configuration and aggregate that backhaul traffic to a single, fiber-connected unit.

Verizon’s mmWave Journey

Jain added that specific to the Verizon trial, the Verana units will support that carrier’s deep 28 GHz mmWave spectrum holdings.

Verizon relied on that spectrum to power its initial 5G network launch. Kyle Malady, EVP and president of global networks and technology at Verizon, recently stated the carrier has now deployed more than 40,000 nodes beaming out mmWave spectrum.

“Now that millimeter-wave technology turns into a tool for RF engineers to use in hot spots that they have,” Malady said.

The carrier has repeatedly noted that where deployed, its mmWave spectrum carries a good share of network traffic. That spectrum could also help power the operators increased focus on 5G-based fixed-wireless access (FWA) services.

Jain noted that Verana’s market timing and focus aligns with that opportunity.

“Our market timing in 2023, 2024, is going to be the right time and we are not too late, and I think that is playing out in the market,” Jain said. “If millimeter wave was going gangbusters right now and everybody was deploying it, then we would be too late. We're just talking about a trial, so we actually feel very good about where we are in the market.”

The Verana product could also further open up Verizon’s 5G RAN antenna options. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg recently lamented the pricing structure for equipment to power the carrier’s private 5G ambitions.

“We would now have offerings for cheaper private 5G networks with certain suppliers and more high level, high quality,” Vestberg stated at Citi’s 2023 Communications, Media, and Entertainment Conference early last month. “We didn’t have this optionality, and that’s why we’re now sort of seeing that we’re actually meeting the customer demands of building private 5G networks.”

Verizon’s Financial Stake in Verana

The agreement also pulls the covers off of Verizon’s financial backing of Verana. The vendor was formed in 2020, and has since raised $43 million in funding, including its most recent $28 million round last year. Jain said that Verizon Ventures has been part of those investments.

This model is similar to what Verizon did last year with cloud-native core platform vendor Casa Systems. That arrangement gave Verizon a stake in the vendor, and it signed a purchase-agreement with Casa Systems to use its 5G core software to help power Verizon’s mobile edge compute (MEC) offerings.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to clarify Verana's funding rounds.