Company: Netcracker Technology Waltham, MA
Company Description: Netcracker Technology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation, has the expertise, culture and resources to help service providers around the world transform their businesses to thrive in a digital economy. Our innovative solutions, value-driven services and unbroken delivery track record of three decades help service providers to achieve their digital transformation goals.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Categories - Business Technology
Nomination Sub Category: Mobile Operations Management Solution
 Nomination Title: Netcracker's RAN
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the nominated new or new-version product or service, OR written answers to the questions for this category? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video.
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this first question: If this is a brand-new product, state the date on which it was released. If this is a new version of an existing product, state the date on which the update was released:
Launched October 2022
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this second question: Describe the features, functions, and benefits of the nominated product or service (up to 350 words):
Total 342 words used.
Mobile networks have been continuously evolving from 1G’s introduction in the 1980s to the sophistication of 5G today. While 1G is no longer operational, most networks today still accommodate a mix of 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G although a 2G/3G switch off is planned. Each G brings new technology innovations, and 5G is no exception with 10x greater speeds than 4G, extremely low latency and massive connectivity for IoT. The mobile network is a complex mix of legacy and advanced technologies and as a result incurs the highest CAPEX costs for telcos and takes up 75% of telco energy costs.
Cost and sustainability goals are not the only issue. The sophistication of 5G brings many dependencies and vast amounts of data to analyze from thousands of base stations. It’s no longer feasible to manage these networks in the traditional way without incurring critical outages. A fundamental change is needed to what is called the Open Radio Access Network (RAN).
Open RAN moves away from a closed architecture supplied by one vendor to an open, cloud platform with multiple vendors that brings agility, lower costs and innovation. However, to take advantage of this groundbreaking evolution, a new approach is needed to operate and manage these multi-vendor cloud networks. Netcracker introduced the Open RAN Domain Automation solution to solve this issue and accelerate the modern RAN environment that will maximize the potential of 5G while reducing costs and helping telcos to reach their sustainability goals.
Netcracker’s solution provides these key innovations:
- Autonomous RAN: We make the entire RAN domain self-sufficient and autonomous, meaning the RAN has all the modern operations systems and AI to automate 4G/5G services from planning and design, to deployment, mobile network optimization and SLA assurance. Automation decreases costs and runs the network in the most optimal way
- Technology and vendor agnostic: We support any mobile vendor and are completely vendor agnostic.
- Open: Our solution is fully open and cloud based, providing the maximum flexibility
- Energy efficient: We have built energy efficient use cases to reduce consumption without impacting mobile performance.
- If you are providing written answers for your submission, you must provide an answer to this third question: Outline the market performance, critical reception, and customer satisfaction with the product or service to date. State monetary or unit sales figures to date, if possible, and how they compare to expectations or past performance. Provide links to laudatory product or service reviews. Include some customer testimonials, if applicable (up to 350 words):
Total 275 words used.
Deployments with Telefonica Germany and Spain and trials with many CSPs including NTT Docomo, Etisalat, TIM, Sunrise, Telenor.
[REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION]
Telefonica Germany
Our deployment with Telefonica Germany with live customers represents the first full open RAN automation project in the industry.
Gerald Huber, Radio & Transport Senior Innovation Manager, Telefonica Germany
“The whole RAN Domain Orchestration project with Netcracker was a success. Even if our expectations were different in the beginning, we learned a lot and understand the necessity of such an automation solution.”
“The Open RAN Domain Orchestration from Netcracker offers many software functionalities covering all needs in the planning and operation of the network.”
“…the clear result of the deployment is that such a tool is essential to run a cloud and virtualized open RAN network. The different layers of a disaggregated network need to be orchestrated and if something goes wrong, they must be identified and corrected immediately”
- You have the option to answer this final question: Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 19 words used.
Netcracker Open RAN Automation solution web page: https://www.netcracker.com/portfolio/solutions/intelligent-operations-automation/open-vran-domain-orchestration.html
Please see links to videos in attachment
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