Benetel partners with Radisys for 5G small cells

Dublin-based Benetel has integrated its Radio Unit with Radisys’ 5G NR OpenRAN software for OpenRAN deployments in communication, industrial and private networks.

The two companies have also made a licensing agreement for Radisys’ LTE software to allow its distribution with Benetel’s eNodeB radio platforms.

Pre-integrated, the hardware and software can be deployed in both non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA) 5G modes – according to Benetel, the companies have recently demonstrated a 5G SA call over the n78 5G band using combination.

“OpenRAN success will be linked to a close integration between a CU/DU solution and an O-RU provider. Radisys is the ideal partner for our solution given its leadership in the OpenRAN ecosystem and its industry-leading LTE and 5G NR software stacks,” said Bentel CEO Adrian O’Connor.

The 5G NR software suite has been designed to support both NSA and SA to ease migration from LTE/LTE-Advanced deployments to 5G, said Benetel. It is aimed at mmWave and sub-6GHz operation. It is compliant with 3GPP Release 15 and O-RAN standards, with a road map towards Release 16. Radisys also provides 5G Core Network functions as defined by 3GPP.

“Service providers and enterprises want to build their networks with open and disaggregated software and hardware components to reap the benefits of a multi-vendor ecosystem,” said Radisys head of software and services Munish Chhabra. “With Benetel, we are providing a pre-integrated OpenRAN solution that enables operator and enterprise customers to accelerate their network deployments.”