Viettel partners with Qualcomm, joins int’l transceiver technology group

Viettel has kicked off a new collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies to advance 5G infrastructure growth and has just become a member of Open XR Forum, an international consortium joining network operators, equipment vendors, and component suppliers in transceiver technology.

The Vietnamese telecom giant and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced in Barcelona on Tuesday a key milestone in their joint effort to deliver state-of-the-art 5G infrastructure globally. Building on their previous announcement in May 2022, the companies have successfully completed the first versions of Viettel's 5G Distributed Unit (DU) and Radio Unit (RU) based on the Qualcomm X100 5G RAN accelerator card and Qualcomm QRU100 5G RAN platform, respectively.

At Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2023, Viettel High Technology, a member of Viettel, unveiled prototypes of their DU and RU, powered by Qualcomm 5G RAN platforms, adding to their comprehensive product portfolio including the core network and online charging system.

“We aim to continuously push the envelope of innovation to provide our partners with the most advanced technology in the industry to serve their customers well and offer premium 5G experiences to consumers,” Durga Malladi, senior vice president and general manager, cellular modems and infrastructure, Qualcomm Technologies, said in a release from Barcelona.

“Through the introduction of commercial-grade open RAN products alongside Viettel, we will help ease deployment for global operators and further deliver on the next-generation of modern networks,” he said.

Trial availability of Viettel's DU and RU units, powered by Qualcomm X100 5G RAN accelerator card and Qualcomm QRU100 5G RAN platform, are expected in the second quarter of 2023 and commercial launch is expected in the fourth quarter of 2023, Qualcomm said.

On the same day from California, Open XR Forum announced Viettel has become one of its latest members, together with Hisense Broadband, KDDI, and Lumentum. The industry initiative said the new members would help it advance the deployment of software-configurable point-to-point and point-to-multipoint coherent optical networks utilizing industry-defined XR optics pluggable transceiver technology.

“Their contributions and participation in the forum will drive multi-vendor, interoperable solutions to enable high-bandwidth, software-configurable coherent optics from the core to the edge of the network,” Open XR Forum said in a release.

Nguyen Duc Tho, network strategy and technology innovation at Viettel Networks, said: “Open XR Forum is pioneering cost-saving innovations in the optical space that will optimize our telecommunications networks.”

“These advances hold significant promise for the optical transport layer of our 5G network infrastructure,” he said.

XR optics is a revolutionary technology purpose-built to break the inherent limitations of traditional point-to-point optical transmission solutions. XR optics paves the way for disruptive network economics as 5G, fiber deep, and hyperscale cloud connectivity impose new challenges on operators, Open XR Forum claims.

Hisense Broadband is a global leader in the development and manufacture of optical transceivers and multimedia terminal devices.

Lumentum, listed on Nasdaq as LITE, is a market-leading designer and manufacturer of innovative optical and photonic products. It is headquartered in San Jose, California.

KDDI is a Japanese telecommunications operator. In order to build a resilient future society that supports Japan's economic development and that provides solutions to social issues, KDDI has raised its "KDDI VISION 2030", aiming for the creation of a society in which anyone can make their dreams a reality, by enhancing the power to connect.