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Presented to Anatel last Friday (27), Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MCTI) committed to funding open RAN projects with 30 million reais (US$ 5.79 million) from the national fund for scientific and technological development (FNDCT) and incentives from the IT law.
The initiative was presented on Friday by José Gontijo, head of the digital science, technology, and innovation department at MCTI, during a meeting of the Anatel open RAN working group, which is the agency that regulates telecommunications issues in Brazil.
According to Gontijo, the goal is to use the telecommunications infrastructure managed by the National Research Network (RNP) for conducting experiments, proofs of concept (POCs), and use cases in open RAN.
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Concrete Actions by MCTI and Anatel
Anatel, MCTI, and Anatel intend to invite equipment and software vendors to participate in the development process. Currently, the ministry is working on formatting the project, which will have three phases, the last involving pilots and “test benches” on the RNP network.
Open RAN is a concept of non-proprietary and interoperable technologies applied to radio access networks (RAN or cellular networks).
Theoretically, it allows for supplier diversification, leading to more competition and potentially reduced costs, as in the open model, an operator could hire network software from one vendor and hardware from another, instead of buying the entire proprietary package from the same vendor.
Despite this, traditional network suppliers, such as Nokia, are also working to bring open and disaggregated hardware and software to the market as a way to compete with new participants in the RAN arena.
The Brazilian government’s action is not unique in the region.
Other Countries Are Also in the RAN Project Race
This week, Argentina’s public innovation department and the council of telecommunications and IT engineers (Copitec) signed a collaboration agreement to develop projects in the ICT area, including open RAN.
Meanwhile, in Colombia, a rural internet project involving Telefónica’s open 4G mobile coverage RAN was one of the proposals presented to the ICT regulator’s sandbox that was selected to advance to the experimentation phase.
In Barbados, the government contracted the American company Parallel Wireless and Barbados-based Neptune Communications for an open RAN for mission-critical services.
The Japanese supplier NEC has also been investing in the open model and seeks to expand its participation in the access networks segment, with projects in development, including in Latin America.
There are also ongoing projects by telecommunications operators such as Millicom in Colombia and Telefónica with IBM in Argentina.
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