DISH Network and Intel announced a technology partnership to integrate Intel 5G infrastructure technology for building open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) 5G network. DISH has selected the Intel Xeon Scalable Processor, the Intel Ethernet 800 Series network adapter, the Intel vRAN Dedicated Accelerator ACC100 and Intel’s FlexRAN software reference architecture for its deployments.
Dish chief network officer Marc Rouanne said Intel has been a trusted advisor throughout the design of the company’s O-RAN network, working with software vendors Mavenir, Altiostar, and many OEM hardware providers.
“We have tested several commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) designs from a large number of server vendors using Intel’s O-RAN compliant FlexRAN architecture and are pleased by the maturity and power of the solutions, together with the cost benefits of COTS solutions,” said Marc Rouanne said.
DISH is using the power of the VMware abstraction solution and the ubiquity of Intel-based servers to load and mix different types of cloud-native workloads like distributed unit (DU), centralized unit (CU), virtual routers, mobile edge computing applications, and 5G Core containerized network functions.
“Virtualized, cloud-native networks like the one DISH is building bring the same server economics that transformed the data center,” said Dan Rodriguez, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the Network Platforms Group.
DISH and Intel are working together on the fully virtualized RAN, including radio reference designs, fronthaul optimization, hardware-based security, and blueprints for servers. The two companies are also collaborating to enable edge applications for enterprises and driving O-RAN standards, and are cooperating in the areas of data optimization and Machine Learning for future phases of the network buildout.
