China Mobile's research division the China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI) has entered an agreement with Ericsson to collaborate on Cloud RAN research and development.
Ericsson and CMRI signed a memorandum of understanding covering a two-year partnership aimed partly at developing a unified understanding of Cloud RAN and defining use cases for the technology.
The collaboration also has the goals of completing joint research into the key technologies related to NFV-based Cloud RAN as well as the construction of Cloud RAN architecture for future 5G use cases.
Through these efforts the companies aim to help drive the standardization of Cloud RAN interfaces and capability and develop the Cloud RAN ecosystem.
Cloud RAN is expected to be a key facilitator on the network evolution from 4G to 5G, and the collaboration forms part of Ericsson's strategic partnership with China Mobile covering cooperation on 5G development.
Nokia's SDN venture Nuage Networks separately announced that China Mobile has selected the vendor's virtualized service platform (VSP) to implement its first SDN-based commercial public cloud project.
The project will cover the adoption of SDN technology for the deployment of around 2,000 public cloud servers in Beijing and Guangzhou.
Nuage Networks said its VSP will allow China Mobile to implement new data centers at a rate ten times faster than with physical deployments while reducing operating expenses by up to 50%.
The deal builds on China Mobile's deployment of Nuage SDN technology in its DevOps private cloud architecture last year.