City of Faenza is location for initial deployment
JMA Wireless and MTI are the key Open RAN tech partners
TIM is one of the European operator heavyweights championing Open RAN
TIM (Telecom Italia) has introduced Open RAN technology into its commercial mobile network in the city of Faenza, located in the north-east province of Ravenna, making it one of the first operators in Europe, and certainly the first in Italy, to follow up its verbal commitment to disaggregated radio access network architectures with an early deployment.
The operator isn’t saying how many 4G/LTE cell sites already have the Open RAN technology deployed, or how many customers could be served currently using the disaggregated RAN architecture, but says it will expand its deployment throughout the year and have “full coverage of Faenza,” a small city with a population of about 70,000, this year, with other cities to be added to the Open RAN rollout schedule during 2021.
Italian national operator joins the initiative
Move comes as Dell’Oro sizes the market opportunity for vendors
The move signals strong intent by the Italian operator to commit to the deployment of disaggregated radio access network technology and lobby for state support to kickstart rollouts and foster a regional Open RAN R&D sector.
By joining its peers, it is supporting “Italian companies already developing solutions for new generation mobile networks,” noted the operator’s Chief Technology and Information Officer Michele Gamberini in this TIM announcement. The move “represents a solid opportunity to ensure our country plays a leading role as a provider of technologies for the digital transformation on a European scale… TIM is reinforcing its commitment to contribute to the development of Open RAN technology in Europe,” added Gamberini.
Noovle focused on services for enterprise users of all sizes and types
Builds on existing relationship with Google Cloud
Aims for €1 billion turnover by 2024
TIM (Telecom Italia) is taking enterprise cloud services, and the role that edge computing will play in the delivery of such services, so seriously it has formed a new wholly-owned company dedicated to that part of its business.
Noovle, named after the ICT and integration services company that TIM acquired in May 2020, will develop and provide a wide range of multi-cloud services to business users (from SMEs to large multinationals), “from the management of network infrastructure in its Data Centres, to design and support services, migration to the cloud and support for the related management activities, using the most advanced technologies based on artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.”