Dell and Fujitsu have announced a collaboration to aid communication service providers (CSPs) with open radio access network architecture adoption and deployment.

The union echoes another one of Dell’s collaborations with long-time partner Wind River for a validated and integrated hardware and software package announced last week at MWC Las Vegas.

This recent partnership aims to allow CSPs to design open networks by collaborating with Dell and Fujitsu initiatives, including a joint reference architecture integrating Fujitsu multi-band RUs, virtualized RAN, and lifecycle management software with Dell virtualized RAN and RAN Accelerator Cards – an inline layer one processing card for CPU load reduction.

"O-RAN is disruptive," Greg Manganello, vice head of the mobile systems business unit at Fujitsu, told SDxCentral. "This collaboration advances the ORAN tipping point such that operators see the benefits outweighing the adoption costs."

The companies will also be connecting labs in Texas in efforts to provide “an extended ORAN test environment for CSPs, ecosystem partners and new ORAN technology entrants,” according to the release. The connected labs include Fujitsu’s 5G Ran Interoperability Lab in Richardson and Dell Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab in Round Rock.

"With the increase in edge computing applications expected with 5G, network operators need to consider new options like open RAN to help make their networks more scalable, flexible and cost-efficient," TECHnalysis Research President Bob O’Donnell stated in the release.

The use of Fujitsu’s open RAN technology exemplifies a larger push to expand ecosystem partner options for operators, according to both Dell VP Andrew Vaz and Manganello.

"Our goal is to drive faster adoption of Open RAN globally," Manganello said. "This collaboration brings together recognized industry players for a pre-integrated reference architecture.  The joint integration allows Dell and Fujitsu to characterize performance for operator evaluations."

The collaboration "will broaden the growing Open RAN ecosystem," allowing operators to choose the best components for their network, regardless of manufacturer," Manganello explained in the release.

"The innovation and network efficiencies that are inherent with open RAN technology will also contribute to a more connected and sustainable world,” he added.