Vodafone has selected Dell Technologies to provide edge compute infrastructure for a commercial Open RAN network being built across Europe.

Dell and Vodafone will build Europe’s first commercial Open Radio Access Network (RAN) network, bringing more broadband access to European businesses and communities. Vodafone has selected Dell to provide the network’s open infrastructure foundation to help drive connectivity across Europe.

“Open and standardised networks will power innovation and new revenue opportunities for the telecommunications industry and businesses of all kinds,” said Dennis Hoffman, senior vice president of Dell Technologies’ telecoms systems business. “We’re applying our decades of experience in open standards and digital transformation to help Vodafone accelerate its network deployment and deliver new levels of innovation that can only come from an open ecosystem.”

Vodafone will deploy Dell EMC PowerEdge servers at base station locations with an initial focus on the 2500 sites in the UK. Designed to thrive in harsh environments and at extreme temperatures, Vodafone will use rugged servers to support Open RAN applications and tackle the demands of data-intensive workloads at the edge. Dell platforms also futureproof Vodafone for Open-RAN compute requirements to provide more capacity and throughput.

“Open RAN provides huge advantages for customers and communities though a diverse and open vendor ecosystem,” said Francisco Martin, head of Open RAN at Vodafone. “Partnering with Dell Technologies gives us a platform for innovation and the ability to further extend connectivity, bringing new opportunities to industries and communities alike.”

Dell Technologies is creating infrastructure, services and an open ecosystem of partners designed to help communications service providers modernise their networks, unlock innovation and create revenue opportunities.

Vodafone is the largest mobile and fixed network operator in Europe and a global IoT connectivity provider. Its M-Pesa technology platform in Africa enables over 48 million people to benefit from access to mobile payments and financial services. It operates mobile and fixed networks in 21 countries and partners with mobile networks in 49 more. As of March 2021, it had over 300 million mobile customers, more than 28 million fixed broadband customers and over 22 million TV customers, and had connected more than 123 million IoT devices.