Parallel Wireless

Parallel Wireless is a provider of a cellular network designed to meet the challenges of heterogeneous networks and 5G. The company's cellular network develops architecture for the cellular radio access network (RAN). This includes software-enabled network solutions to reduce the time to deploy LTE networks, and edge cellular base station solutions to support 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G RAN and virtual RAN. The company's technology has applications in e-learning, digital health, e-banking, Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous driving, and robotics.

Parallel Wireless was founded in 2012 and has since become a leader in Open RAN wireless networks with the most Open RAN deployments globally. The company his headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with RAN offices and labs in Bristol, United Kingdom; 5G labs and testing capabilities in Kfar Saba, Israel; and Open RAN research and development centers in Pune and Bangalore.

Customers of Parallel Wireless include Telefonica, Cellcom, Inland Cellular, British Telecommunications, Optus, Vodafone, Zain, Etisalat, 5G RuralFirst, and Vodacom.

The company's platform, which Parallel Wireless calls the ALL G O-RAN platform, is a software platform forming an open, secure, and intelligent RAN architecture for wireless connectivity.

The Parallel Wireless OpenRAN ecosystem is built to be a flexible and scalable architecture offering disaggregation of hardware and software, the decoupling of CU/DU functionality, and supports any 3GPP compliant traffic splits. The company's ecosystem includes software defined radios (SDRs) capable of being upgraded to 5G to ease deployment and lower the cost of deployment.

Graphic representation of where Parallel Wireless exists in a network.

Parallel Wireless has built their technology and software for open interoperability through the GPP-based baseband processing platform, radio hardware, software to support current and future generations of wireless technology. This is, in part, achieved by disaggregating the hardware and software of the platform. The software platform is capable of supporting mobile operator's expansion and modernization of networks, and consists of COTS vBBU, OpenRAN-based RRU, and OpenRAN Controller and network software suite.

Software-defined solutions offered by Parallel Wireless, including a "white box" baseband, are offered to help mobile operators replace legacy 2G/3G/4G systems with a virtualized OpenRAN technology. Multiple technologies are capable of running simultaneously on the same RRH for flexible data and voice services to the end user.

The vBBU runs on a COTS server and is built to offer future-proof architecture of a Distributed Unit (DU) and a Central Unit (CU), deployed at the network's edge. The vBBU can share resources among multiple RRUs on-sire in a multi-carrier sector in order to optimize resource pooling.

The company's software suite combines all G RAN functions, including vBSC for 2G, vRNC for 3G, small cell gateways for 4G, to simplify and automate the RAN of networks, and thereby reduce the cost of deployment. Through the software suite, Parallel Wireless offers a unified architecture through abstraction of traditional RAN and core network functions, and enables an open network architecture through standards-based and open interfaces between network components. This can further simplify network management through automation and integration of new RAN products into the core of the network.

Parallel Wireless's datacenter-native software offers automation, optimization, agility, and deployment to a network, with a unified approach to enable technologies such as 5G, 4G, 3G, and 2G. This is intended to help operators get the most out of network assets and use cloud solutions to further modernize and future-proof networks. As well, the company's solution can help make networks interoperable, automated, and easy to deploy and maintain. Key features of the OpenRAN Network Software include:

• Aggregator—offers a gateway for all RAN interfaces towards the core network, and includes function such as vBSC, vRNC, vENB, HeNBGW, and HNBGW; includes security gateways and abstracts different types of RAN from the core network
• Near-RT RAN Intelligence Controller—ORAN compliant Near-RT RIC supports xApp framework to host PW xApps and 3rd party or Operator xApps
• Non-RT RAN Intelligence Controller—ORAN compliant Non-RT RIC supporting the rApp framework to host rApps as well as 3rd party or Operator rApps
• RAN sharing—this is a network sharing enabler, which is considered key for the deployment and operation of 5G networks; this solution enables MOCN/MORAN, offering the ability to steer or route traffic to the proper core and allows RAN sharing without complication to any home networks.

Parallel Wireless's Converged Network Intelligence serves as a Non-Real Time RAN Controller in compliance with the O-RAN Alliance. The Non-RT RIC includes a Self Optimizing Network (SON) and analytics to help the deployment and management of the the OpenRAN through software. As well, it is a radio-access neutral network and supports multiple technologies across a single network. The software platform includes flexible network architecture that integrates several network functions and enhanced services into a converged platform, in order to promote seamless mobility through universal roaming, offer a streamlined network management, offer unified billing, and give end-users service uniformity across different radio access technologies.

Parallel Wireless, through an open collaboration with OpenRAN ecosystem partners, has created a compliant OpenRAN ecosystem capable of delivering wireless infrastructure of the latest generations at a lower cost than others to offer more equal access to 5G. This technology architecture includes the company's ALL G software-defined delivery of wireless coverage or capacity use cases, to increase the affordability of 5G deployments, and to help mobile operators and industries increase connectivity. This platform offers unified cloud-native architecture across 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G that is both open and standardized across RAN, orchestration, and analytics.