StarHub partners NTT DOCOMO to bring Open Radio Access Network to Singapore

Open Radio Access Network brings a new level of flexibility and freedom for businesses

Ayush Sharma, StarHub Chief Technology Officer, with Sadayuki Abeta OREX Evangelist and Chief Open RAN Strategist of NTT DOCOMO and Chief Technology Officer of OREX SAI at StarHub's office to witness the StarHub Open RAN field trial.

Singapore, 29 August 2024 - StarHub has successfully conducted Singapore's inaugural Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) call on its 5G network today, marking a significant milestone in the global telecommunications landscape. This achievement comes as part of a groundbreaking demonstration in collaboration with NTT DOCOMO. Representatives from NTT DOCOMO, Keysight Technologies and Fujitsu were on-site at StarHub's office yesterday to witness the field trial in its production network, underscoring the importance of this launch.

"With the successful demonstration of our Open RAN, in collaboration with NTT DOCOMO, we are thrilled to be the first to bring it to market, marking this significant milestone for StarHub and Singapore," said Ayush Sharma, Chief Technology Officer of StarHub. "This not only underscores our commitment to delivering first-of-its-kind innovations that afford enterprises greater value, flexibility and customisability to choose what is best to meet their needs, but also lets us vastly rethink how we approach network infrastructure differently."

Compared to traditional Radio Access Network, the Open RAN approach allows enterprises to customise various components like the radios and base stations, according to their own needs. Decoupling these components allows enterprises to be "vendor-agnostic", utilising standardised, open interfaces that allow different vendors' equipment to work together seamlessly on a commercial or production core network. This allows enterprises to select the best components to better meet their requirements, and potentially reduce their costs. Beyond hardware, Open RAN also empowers enterprises to optimise network performance according to their user demands, through their RAN Intelligent Controllers.

"On top of giving MNOs the freedom of choice and lowering operational costs, Open RAN allows MNOs to keep up with the latest technology, freeing them from any particular provider's roadmap," said Sadayuki Abeta OREX Evangelist and Chief Open RAN Strategist of NTT DOCOMO and Chief Technology Officer of OREX SAI. "This opens the door to an infinite number of possibilities in how we build networks around the world, and NTT DOCOMO and OREX SAI are excited to partner with StarHub in this endeavour."

StarHub's Open RAN underwent rigorous validation by Keysight Technologies. Through Keysight's UeSIM UE Emulation RAN Solutions, which validates end-to-end Radio Access Network performance by emulating real network traffic over radio, StarHub's Open RAN successfully performed a thorough validation of DOCOMO OREX packages to ensure network reliability, performance, and implementation, validating the Open RAN's readiness for market adoption. StarHub's Open RAN achieved a downlink and uplink throughput of up to 1.295Gbps and 73.5Mbps respectively, with an average latency of 15ms, establishing its consumer readiness.

StarHub and NTT DOCOMO remain committed in continuing their collaboration to redefine and expand Open RAN capabilities together, pioneering technological advancements that shape the future of communications in Singapore and beyond.