Fujitsu and Dell pave the way for continued Open RAN adoption

A recent partnership between Fujitsu Ltd. and Dell Technologies Inc. provides yet another signal that both companies are all in when it comes to the open radio access network, or Open RAN.

In October, the two companies announced a collaboration that will let communications service providers design a reference architecture to integrate Fujitsu remote radio units with Dell’s virtualized accelerator cards.

“We’re big open radio access network advocates,” said Greg Manganello (pictured, left), global head of network services at Fujitsu. “We’re one of the leading founders of that open standard. The reason is it give operators choices and much more vendor diversity and therefore a lot of innovation when they build out their 5G networks.”

Manganello spoke with theCUBE industry analyst Dave Vellante at MWC 2023, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. He was joined by Ryan McMeniman (right), director of product management, Open Telecommunications Ecosystem, at Dell, and they discussed key aspects of the partnership in support of Open RAN. (* Disclosure below.)

Building partner ecosystem

For Dell, an embrace of the open standard for radio access networks means building its partner base. The company made a series of announcements during MWC 2023 in Barcelona that highlighted its interest in Open RAN collaboration.

“O-RAN really needs to be seen as a choice,” McMeniman said. “That choice comes with building out an ecosystem of partners. Working with people like Fujitsu and others helps us build systems that the carriers can rely upon. Otherwise, it looks like another science experiment, a sandbox, and it’s really anything but that.”

As more than a sandbox, Open RAN offers CSPs an opportunity to improve power efficiency.

“Our radios are multi-band, and highly compact, and super energy efficient so that the TCO for the carrier is much, much lower,” Manganello said. “We’ve also announced … power savings, energy savings applications, which are really sophisticated AI-enabled apps that can switch off the radio based upon traffic prediction models, and we can save the operator 30% on their energy bill. That’s a big number.”

One of the key players in the partner ecosystem that doesn’t get the attention of many companies is Broadcom Inc., notwithstanding the press coverage of its planned VMware Inc. acquisition. Under the covers, Broadcom components, along with other silicon, is powering the next generation of servers from companies like Dell, HPE, Lenovo and others. For its part, Broadcom has executed a stunningly successful M&A strategy to build a major powerhouse in the industry. As well, the company’s chipsets are ubiquitous in the mobile market and it bears watching how silicon from Broadcom and others will increasingly grab attention in the market.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the MWC 2023 event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for MWC 2023. Neither Dell Technologies Inc., the primary sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE