DISH and Intel announced that two companies will work together to integrate Intel 5G infrastructure technology into DISH’s buildout of the nation’s first virtualized, open Radio Access Network 5G network deployment. DISH announced that the company has selected the Intel Xeon Scalable Processor, the Intel Ethernet 800 Series network adapter, the Intel vRAN Dedicated Accelerator ACC100, and Intel’s FlexRAN software reference architecture for its deployments.
Intel 5G infrastructure technology
DISH is also working with several vendors to combine cloud and connectivity technology. With a greenfield 5G network that is being architected from the ground up, Intel brings a full suite of silicon, software, and tools to transform the network with a software-defined, agile, and scalable infrastructure. With the partnership, DISH will be able to consolidate and optimize multiple workloads at locations across its network. Marc Rouanne, Executive Vice President and Chief Network Officer, DISH, said,
“Intel has been a trusted advisor throughout the design of our O-RAN network, working in concert with our software vendors Mavenir, Altiostar, and many OEM hardware providers. We have tested several commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) designs from a large number of server vendors using Intel’s O-RAN compliant FlexRAN architecture and are pleased by the maturity and power of the solutions, together with the cost benefits of COTS solutions. We are using the power of the VMware abstraction solution and the ubiquity of Intel-based servers to load and mix different types of cloud-native workloads like distributed unit (DU), centralized unit (CU), virtual routers, mobile edge computing applications, and 5G Core containerized network functions.”