Celona Introduces Industry’s First Enterprise Open RAN Technology to Help Accelerate the Smooth Transition to Interoperable Networks

Inks strategic partnership with In-Q-Tel to help satisfy the growing requirements within the federal market for emerging 5G LAN technology

Celona, the leading innovator and pioneer of 5G LAN solutions, announced the first enterprise-focused implementation of the O-RAN Alliance Open Radio Access Networks (O-RAN) specifications that allow for the virtualization of 5G radio access network software within private mobile networks. Celona also announced that it has signed a strategic partnership and investment agreement with In-Q-Tel Inc. providing their U.S. intelligence and national security partners with first-of-a-kind 5G LAN technology.

“Celona’s software-defined wireless networking solution enables enterprises to set up and manage their own private 5G and LTE cellular networks for secure enterprise communications,” said Brinda Jadeja, Senior Partner, Investments at In-Q-Tel. “Their solution is designed to make it easy to deploy secure wireless connectivity, making it well suited for deployment in the varied operating environments of the U.S. intelligence and national security communities.”

EXTENDING THE EDGELESS ENTERPRISE ACROSS THE RAN

Celona’s new O-RAN capabilities extend its Edgeless Enterprise architecture by giving customers the ability to run cellular radio access and RAN intelligent controller (RIC) functions directly within Celona’s 5G core software that operates anywhere on common edge compute cloud platforms. Celona’s unique O-RAN approach provides full integration and additional flexibility to meet strict enterprise application requirements for explicit network performance, including bandwidth, capacity, and latency.

As part of Celona’s 5G-First Edgeless Enterprise Network architecture, Celona’s O-RAN support offers different RAN split options within a single 5G Radio hardware access point using standard interfaces defined by 3GPP, ORAN Alliance, and Small Cell Forum. Celona’s 5G O- RAN, edge, and core solutions can all be integrated with third-party vendor components as well.

Celona’s edgeless enterprise is an architectural approach that converges network services, enterprise applications, cyber security tools, WAN optimization, and now RAN functions on cloud-native edge computing platforms that can be deployed virtually anywhere to achieve the greatest levels of agility and performance.

“Instead of starting with traditional telco network architecture and trying to force fit to enterprise environment, Celona’s Enterprise O-RAN solution is designed from scratch with enterprise network architectures and use cases in mind. Having fully embraced O-RAN principles from day one, we view a converged 5G core that orchestrates multi-RAN technologies and integrates with the enterprise switching fabric, SD-WAN, and other vital network services as the right solution around which proper end-to-end SLA management can be applied,” said Dr. Mehmet Yavuz, Co-Founder, and CTO at Celona. “While there will be cases where large-scale enterprises and MSP deployments require the virtualization of the RAN and native integration with mobile operator core networks, we believe most enterprises will want a fully integrated approach with the flexibility to change their deployment model as the business evolves. We are delivering both options.”

Unlike other networking technologies, 5G embraces a service-based core network architecture with a cloud native software stack. This allows traditional monolithic network services to be broken into modular and stateless network functions that meet specific SLA requirements for a variety of applications in a scalable and flexible manner. Celona is now applying similar techniques to the 5G RAN by virtualizing the RAN functions using standard interface defined by 3GPP, ORAN Alliance, and Small Cell Forum.

Celona’s O-RAN capabilities allow enterprises to create an avenue for introducing advanced RAN features and capabilities beyond the standard centralized feature sets by leveraging a programmable open-software development approach.

To make the promise of 5G a reality, enterprises need a practical solution that is scalable, cost-effective, and gives them complete control. Following the key principles of Open RAN is crucial to achieve this goal by:

• Enabling open APIs and standard interfaces that provide unprecedented interoperability,
  
  
• Maximizing the use of common-off-the-shelf hardware and merchant silicon, and
  
  
• Minimizing proprietary hardware to lower OPEX and CAPEX costs.

With Celona’s O-RAN support, virtualized functions, such as signaling and data packet processing, MAC layer packet scheduling, protocol conversion, and encryption, can be pooled with the ability to dynamically allocate different resources efficiently and effectively. This helps organizations migrate to an on-demand enterprise architecture that fits the needs of constantly changing applications while embracing the enterprise 5G revolution.

Source: Celona media announcement