With the goal of enabling educational and research and development activities, Riga Technical University (RTU), a leading educational institution, has signed a technology agreement with IS-Wireless, a 5G open RAN provider.
Founded in 1862, RTU is the oldest established technical university in the Baltic States, educating and training approximately 15,000 students. The institution focuses on becoming a third-generation university that not only provides quality education, but also conducts advanced research, ensures innovation and technology transfer, and puts scientific discovery into practice. .
RTU’s nine faculties offer education in engineering, social sciences and humanities. RTU is developing its infrastructure with the construction of a campus on the island of Ipsala, which upon completion will become the most advanced engineering research center in the Baltic Sea region.
IS-Wireless, a member of the O-RAN Alliance, is working on multiple open RAN deployments around the world, including at Deutsche Telekom’s technology incubator Hubram. Digital Catapult for the UK and South East Asia.
The deal with Riga University of Technology was announced at a time when Central Eastern Europe is turning its attention to open RAN and private networks. “The deployment of private 5G networks at RTU is fully in line with global trends in the mobile network field,” said his CEO of IS-Wireless, Sławomir Pietrzyk.
“The private 5G market is expected to grow to $129.6 billion by 2032, and its value is estimated to reach $2.6 billion by 2022. will be able to fully capture large-scale educational and research opportunities.”
“Interest in private 5G and open RAN networks is growing rapidly in Europe, as evidenced by the deployments we are making in countries such as Poland, Germany and the UK. We are delighted to see so many groups from diverse backgrounds coming together around the idea of harnessing the full potential of 5G.”
Research and development activities carried out at the institute will focus on performance evaluation of open RAN architectures, research on machine learning applications for RIC (Radio Access Network) intelligent controllers, and construction of private 5G networking testbeds. .
Research and development cooperation will be expanded in the new laboratory at Riga University of Technology. The partners will also participate in extensive research collaboration in the university’s newly launched Mobile Networks Laboratory.
“The launch of the institute will be the first step towards creating valuable know-how, capabilities and experience in our region,” Pietrzyk added. “Our collaborative research and development efforts will enable us to deploy even more advanced private 5G networks for a variety of applications, including industrial use cases.”
Rine Breede, Vice-Rector for Innovation at Riga University of Technology, said this at the official launch of the institute:we met [IS-Wireless] It was founded exactly one year ago with the purpose of understanding the changes taking place globally. We believe that what we are doing is a perfect example of responding to these changes.
“The cooperation we have established demonstrates our ability to take bold steps very quickly and is a prime example of the competitive advantage of our region. Launching the Laboratory is a great showcase of rapid and collaborative progress. It is a perfect example of how the research community and industry are working together to build the faculty of electronics and communications and advance innovation.”
