Verizon has added its first Ericsson virtualized cell site to further its network virtualization efforts. The cell site, also referred to as Ericsson Cloud RAN, has been implemented with support from Intel and RedHat, which have provided the processing and cloud-native orchestration functions.
More specifically, Verizon is using Ericsson’s commercial 5G Cloud RAN solution, which consists of a virtualized Central Unit (vCU), virtualized Distributed Unit (vDU) and radio units. The solution spans across all of the carrier’s frequency bands, utilizing both FDD and TDD 5G spectrum assets. Intel provided its 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor, vRAN Dedicated Accelerator ACC100 and Intel Ethernet Network Adapter E810, while Red Hat provided its OpenShift and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes solutions.
