CommScope announced that it has acquired the complete patent portfolio for virtual radio access networks (vRAN) from Phluido, a pioneer in RAN virtualization and disaggregation. These patents address key concepts introduced in both 5G and O-RAN radio access networks, including efficient fronthaul transport, virtualization, and network synchronization.
“We believe the acquisition of this intellectual property, combined with our ONECELL patent portfolio, further solidifies CommScope’s position as innovative indoor RAN provider,” said Matt Melester, chief technology officer for CommScope’s Venue and Campus Networks and Outdoor Wireless Networks businesses. “Both Phluido and our ONECELL platform introduced new concepts in 4G which are now key components in 5G architectures.”
Several of these patents, along with other existing CommScope patents, have been declared as O-RAN standard essential intellectual property. As part of this agreement, Phluido is licensed to continuing using their patents for developmental, non-commercial purposes.
What is vRAN?
Virtualization of radio access network is seen as the next step in the evolution of cellular networks, particularly in advancing 5G, helping to evolve previously hardware-driven functions by making them virtualized or software-based.
Similar to the transition that took place in IT networks, many operators are looking to move towards a software-based network to become more flexible in providing new services and feature enhancements as well as overall network management.
vRAN moves the controller functions of today’s hardware base stations to centralized servers, bringing them closer to the edge of a network to allow MNOs to pool and adjust radio resources to better accommodate for user traffic. Today’s future-proof 4G vRAN solutions are ready to deliver in the 5G world to provide the connectivity and performance users will come to expect from next-generation networks.