Under the terms of the joint initiative the Juniper RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) and Intel FlexRAN platform will be pre-integrated and pre-validated to enhance usability of a full O-RAN-compliant Intelligent RAN system
Juniper will alco collaborate on R&D work with Intel Labs for RIC platform-specific apps to improve customer experience, maximise return on investment and drive rapid O-RAN ecosystem innovation.
Juniper will also launch joint customer testbeds with Intel to validate performance-improving implementation and speed of time-to-market.
“Juniper has always been committed to open infrastructures, which is why we are excited to support the work that Intel has undertaken with their FlexRAN ecosystem," said Constantine Polychronopoulos, vice president of 5G and telco cloud at Juniper Networks
"By collaborating with Intel, we are able to deliver cloud-native routing, automation, intelligence and assurance solutions and services that are optimised for our customers’ needs, speeding time-to-market and enabling them to monetise faster.”
The news aligns with Juniper's existing investments including the exclusive IP licensing agreement with Netsia, continuing its involvement in the O-RAN Alliance (contributing to six working groups and serving as chair and co-chair of the slicing and use-case task groups) and being part of the team building joint customer solutions in Intel’s 5G Lab.
The costs Radio Access Networks (RAN) is a significant amount of service providers’ capital expenditure, largely due to limited choice and closed architectures which leads vendor to lock-in.
“The virtualisation of the RAN continues to gain momentum across the industry as operators take advantage of cloud economics and the delivery of new services," said Caroline Chan, vice president of Intel Corporation and general manager of network business incubator division.
"This collaboration with Juniper and the validation of FlexRAN and RIC solutions will assist service providers to overcome integration challenges and accelerate time-to-market for future deployments.”
