HFCL joins O-RAN ALLIANCE to accelerate open innovation in 5G; Stock down 1.5%

22 Feb 2022 , 10:42 AM

HFCL Limited (HFCL) announced on Monday that HFCL has joined the O-RAN ALLIANCE, a world-wide community of mobile network operators, vendors, and research & academic institutions operating in the Radio Access Network (RAN) industry. O-RAN ALLIANCE’s mission is to re-shape the RAN industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualized, and fully interoperable mobile networks.

The O-RAN standards enable a more competitive and vibrant RAN supplier ecosystem with faster innovation to improve user experience. O-RAN-based mobile networks at the same time improve the efficiency of RAN deployments as well as operations by the mobile operators.

At around 10.45 am, HFCL Ltd was trading at Rs70.45 per piece down by Rs1.05 or 1.47% from its previous closing of Rs71.50 per piece on the BSE.

HFCL is investing in building a complete portfolio of products for 5G Radio Access Network and 5G Transport equipment that include 8T8R/32T32R Macro RU, Indoor/Outdoor Small Cell, Cell Site Router and Aggregation Routers for fronthaul, midhaul and backhaul.

As an O-RAN ALLIANCE member, HFCL will focus on contributing to standards that ensure a true open and multi-vendor RAN network with emphasis on fronthaul, beamforming, Near-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), Service Management & Orchestration (SMO), and end-to-end test specifications. HFCL will also focus on integration and validation of its 5G Macro RU products and solutions at plugfests with other O-RAN ALLIANCE members and contributors.

“We are excited to be a part of the O-RAN ALLIANCE and look forward to work with alliance members to realize the benefits of O-RAN” said Mr. Mahendra Nahata, Managing Director at HFCL.

He further added “Open networking based on a well-defined architecture and pre-validated solution will enable operators to have increased supplier diversity, accelerate innovation, reduce CAPEX/OPEX, and quick roll-out of 5G networks.”

HFCL’s 5G Marco Radio Unit (RU) products are based on O-RAN 7.2 split option that provides an open fronthaul interface towards any O-RAN based third party Distributed Unit (DU). The Company is investing in a state of the art 5G Lab at its R&D center in Bangalore for demonstration of various O-RAN use cases and deployment scenarios. The test beds leverage O-RAN architecture and AI/ML to enable network intelligence and closed loop automation through open and standardized interfaces in a multivendor network.