Nokia and du Deploy First Commercial 5G Standalone Cloud RAN Solution in Middle East and Africa

• Highlights du’s technological leadership and commitment to the UAE’s ambitious digital transformation agenda.
• Nokia’s anyRAN approach offers customers more flexibility, openness, security, and choice in their selection of cloud infrastructure.
• The solutions are powered by Red Hat OpenShift.

ESPOO - Nokia and du, a leading telecom and digital services provider, announced that they have deployed the first commercial 5G Cloud RAN solution in the Middle East and Africa region. The partnership highlights du’s hybrid RAN strategy that leverages both purpose-built and cloud-native infrastructures for greater flexibility and scalability. The deployment supports the UAE’s evolving digital requirements as well as advanced use cases, including AI, machine learning, and industry-specific applications in manufacturing, energy, and logistics, according to the official website of Nokia. 

The commercial 5G Cloud RAN site deployed in Abu Dhabi based on Nokia's flexible anyRAN approach included Nokia’s virtualized Distributed Units (vDU) and Centralized Units (vCU) running on Dell PowerEdge XR8620 servers, and Red Hat OpenShift, the industry's leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes, to support cloud-native RAN functions across the network. By integrating with Red Hat OpenShift, service providers such as du have the option to better scale their 5G network footprint and quickly introduce new services. They also utilized Nokia’s AirScale Massive MIMO Radios operating in the 3.6 GHz (n78) spectrum frequency, using 5G Standalone architecture.

Nokia’s commercial Cloud RAN solution can co-exist with purpose-built networks in hybrid environments and evolve to full cloud-native networks, supporting the rising demand for RAN cloudification. Common Nokia RAN software ensures feature and performance consistency of Cloud RAN and purpose-built RAN across the entire commercial footprint.

This milestone provides further evidence of Nokia's flexible anyRAN approach being the best choice providing strategic options for service providers and enterprises for their RAN evolution with purpose-built, hybrid, or Cloud RAN solutions, enabling customers to monetize their networks.

Saleem Alblooshi, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of du, said: “Our collaboration with Nokia represents a major leap forward in du’s mission to deliver exceptional network performance and innovative services. Leveraging 5G Cloud RAN will not only enhance our network's efficiency and flexibility but also enable us to explore new opportunities and services that can deliver genuine value to our customers and society at large.”

Mark Atkinson, Head of RAN at Nokia, said: “This strategic partnership with du is much more than an infrastructure deployment. Both companies are committed to driving innovation by developing pioneering use cases that leverage the transformative power of AI and private wireless networks.

Under our anyRAN approach, we bring together Nokia’s expertise, trusted performance, and innovation in radio networks with best-in-class partner solutions to offer true flexibility and scalability to operators and enterprises. This collaboration will enable the development of innovative services that empower businesses and individuals alike.”