Mavenir scored a significant deal with U.K.-based Virgin Media O2 to provide the vendor’s open virtualized radio access network (RAN) gear and act as the prime systems integrator for the operator’s 5G update plans. The move continues an aggressive government-mandated push for U.K. operators to roll out open RAN technology.

Mavenir’s open RAN system includes virtualized layer-one and layer-two RAN (vRAN) software running on Intel Xeon scalable processors, vRAN ACC100 Accelerator and 800-series Ethernet adapters. Mavenir is also providing its OpenBeam radios that support massive multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology, O-RAN-based radio units (RUs) for open fronthaul between the antennas and the vRAN, network monitoring and management.

The equipment will help power Virgin Media O2’s aggressive open network update program.

The carrier last year signed a deal with NEC and Rakuten Symphony to conduct joint open RAN field trial across a handful of live sites on the carrier’s commercial network. That followed testing at NEC and Rakuten Symphony’s labs in India and NEC’s open RAN lab in London.

More recently, the carrier lined up to be one of the first European operators to trial Ericsson’s cloud RAN product, which was part of a broader network expansion and deployment agreement. That agreement calls for Ericsson to provide equipment for Virgin Media O2’s network across the U.K., including Ericsson’s quad-technology baseband and multi-band 5G MIMO radio Air 3258 platform.

The carrier is also using VMware's Telco Cloud infrastructure to underpin its network virtualization efforts.

“Through digitalizing our networks, we’re seamlessly integrating our infrastructure to get more value from our existing assets,” Virgin Media O2 CTO Jeanie York noted in a statement on the Mavenir deal. “Extending our collaboration with Mavenir to the RAN for the first time will help us establish a future-proof open vRAN architecture, unlocking the benefits of a multi-vendor open interface while allowing us to rapidly benefit from an end-to-end network solution.”

The carrier, which is a joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica, currently covers 99% of the U.K. population with 4G LTE service and plans to cover 50% with 5G by the end of this year.

The deal continues what has been a strong start to 2023 for Mavenir.

The vendor was touted as a significant part of Dish Network’s extensive open RAN-based 5G network deployment. This includes support for more than 40,000 radios across Dish Network’s operations.

It also unveiled public availability of its open RAN intelligent controller (RIC) targeted at providing telecommunication operators using open RAN architecture with greater control over those network deployments. The vendor said the platform has already been tapped by a pair of “tier-one operators” for use in their open RAN deployments, and had previously shown interoperability with Indian operator Bharti Airtel and has been working with a number of operators in Europe.

Mavenir exited 2022 ranked by Dell’Oro Group as one of the market’s top open RAN vendors alongside Samsung, Fujitsu and NEC. However, it pales in comparison to more established RAN providers like Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia.

A recent Gartner Magic Quadrant report placed Mavenir in its Visionaries box alongside those open RAN rivals. The research firm lauded Mavenir’s OpenBeam system and carrier wins, but noted market scale continues to hamper the vendor’s growth opportunities.

Mavenir’s deal with Virgin Media O2 also continues an open RAN push by U.K. operators.

The U.K. government in mid-2020 mandated that all network equipment from China-based vendor Huawei be removed by 2027. That led European operators like Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Orange and Telefónica to push toward open RAN platforms in an attempt to expand and diversify their vendor options.

The operators signed an agreement to individually and jointly commit to deploy the technology, which separates hardware from software in telecommunications networks with open interfaces. Mobile carriers are especially interested in open RAN because it is framed as an alternative to the proprietary nature of RAN and the effective monopoly enjoyed by a trio of global RAN suppliers.

More recently, those operators released a white paper highlighting advances in meeting challenges tied to maturity, security, and energy efficiency.