AT&T completed a test of Nokia’s near real-time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) xApps with the native E2 interface.
The trial was implemented on Nokia’s commercial near real-time RIC platform, running on Nokia AirScale base stations on AT&T’s network.
In this trial, near real-time xApps utilized E2SM Policy Services to dynamically perform targeted RAN optimization. The benefit of near real-time RIC is that it can optimize services for specific user groups, different frequency layers, or based on Quality of Service (QoS) Class Identifiers in 5G networks. Nokia’s near real-time RIC platform and xApps also bring capabilities to utilize existing interfaces to enable RAN optimization use cases that suit the operator networks.
Robert Soni, VP – RAN Technology at AT&T said: “AT&T is excited about the potential benefits offered by the O-RAN E2 interface. We are pleased to see the maturing of the Nokia Service Enablement Platform in consecutive trials over the last few years. The results of the trial demonstrated that E2 interface allows RAN policies to be updated several orders of magnitude faster than through legacy OAM interfaces, and thus unlocking new methods for RAN optimization.”
