Nokia and Saudi neutral-host provider TAWAL have completed the world’s first live demonstration of a multi-tenant, shareable Open RAN edge-cloud platform.
This enables mobile operators and large enterprises to launch high-performance 5G services at significantly lower costs than previously possible.
The showcase proves how TAWAL can offer active infrastructure as a service while operators enjoy significant savings and future-proof their networks with open, cloud-native flexibility. Nokia’s anyRAN architecture uniquely delivers the trusted performance required to run anyRAN workloads on an open-edge cloud.
Across Saudi Arabia, demand for widespread 5G connectivity is soaring as smart city giga projects gather pace. Yet traditional single-operator rollouts risk duplicating infrastructure, driving up capex, and delaying service availability.
By adopting a neutral host model, TAWAL can pool spectrum agnostic, Open RAN baseband, and radio assets so multiple service providers share the same edge cloud platform, reducing energy consumption, freeing spectrum, and shrinking the digital divide for businesses and communities nationwide. Nokia’s anyRAN solution, built on open interfaces, cloud-agnostic software, and high-performance AirScale radios, is designed precisely to unlock these efficiencies.
Abdulrahman Al Moaiqel, Chief Commercial Officer at TAWAL, said that, “Neutral hosts must add value beyond steel and concrete. By partnering with Nokia, we can offer Saudi operators an on-demand, pay-as-you-grow 5G platform that cuts their TCO and accelerates digital transformation for the Kingdom’s giga projects.”
“Moving from a tower company model to a fully-fledged network company demands technology that combines openness with proven performance. Our anyRAN approach lets TAWAL mix and match vendors at the cloud layer while still guaranteeing the ultrareliable, low latency experience operators and end users expect,” noted Mikko Lavanti, Senior Vice President of Middle East and Africa at Nokia.
