Mavenir powering the first Smart City in Thailand with 5G Open RAN integration across mmWave Private Network

Mavenir, the Network Software Provider building the future of networks with cloud-native software that runs on any cloud and transforms the way the world connects, announced today that it’s working with National Telecom Public Company Limited (NT), a state-owned telecommunications company, 5GCT, a local partner specialized in delivering end-to-end 5G Smart Cities and Cisco Systems (Thailand), a leading networking company, to launch the first 5G Open RAN Smart City in Ban Chang, Thailand.

The launch of the 5G Smart City creates synergies between public and private sectors for a fully functional smart city. The city of Ban Chang, is connected to a motorway linking Thailand’s two largest cities: Pattaya and Bangkok. The location is within close proximity to U-Tapao International Airport, Map Ta Phut Industrial Zone and the new master planned Ban Chang Smart City that are strategically important infrastructure for the Digital Economy in Thailand and the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC). These characteristics make Ban Chang the perfect city to take advantage of 5G use cases across industrial robots, factory automation, remote telemedicine, aviation, logistics and agriculture. Industry leaders are terming the development the ‘Silicon Beach’ of Asia.

The Ban Chang Smart City 5G Private Network operates on Millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum, spectrum which is ideally suited for a network operating Internet of Thing (IoT) sensors, drones and smart poles, all applications which require fast data uplink to the core for realtime analysis and city management.

Mavenir provided a cloud-native, open architecture-based Private Network solution that enabled TOT[1] to reach the promise of 5G. The software-based platform enabled the transformation of the mobile communication private network into a completely virtualized environment, where devices, applications, and services run on an automated network using open architecture, containers, and artificial intelligence (AI). Mavenir’s end-to-end 5G Open RAN, Millimeter wave (mmWave) radios and 5G Core with Open API technology standards, in-sync with the cloud-native solutions supporting private On-Premise applications delivers Smart City concepts such as real-time diagnostics of traffic, public safety, digital signage and sensitive environmental conditions.

TOT’s IP transport infrastructure vendor and a key Mavenir technology partner, Cisco, provided switching hardware and application services to enable the ‘smart’ components of the 5G solution.

Mavenir’s Aniruddho Basu, GM of its Emerging Business Unit, said “We are proud to be part of this ambitious 5G project which sees a whole city connected on a series of 5G applications running in parallel. Connectivity is at the heart of this deployment - connecting people, communities, government services, and private sector services through local government data combined with new data acquired through Internet of Things (IOT), sensors, drones, and external collected data, to fully analyze it for proper city management and citizen knowledge.”

Commenting on the announcement, Shannon Kalayanamitr, Chief Executive Officer at 5GCT, said “At 5GTC, we are driven to strengthen the potential of Thailand through high speed 5G. The partnership with Mavenir as an infrastructure provider enables us to deliver robust, secure and reliable 5G Private Network infrastructure across enterprises, including smart city applications, industry 4.0 applications - automated industry and modern medicine.”

Taweewat Chantaraseno, Managing Director, Thailand & Indochina, Cisco Systems (Thailand), said “We are delighted to be part of the first 5G smart city in Thailand. With the partnership with Mavenir and Cisco Connected Communities Infrastructure (CCI), the host of Smart City can create a single, secure communications network to support all needs that are simpler to deploy and manage from end-to-end visibility, ranging from smart kiosks and outdoor Wi-Fi, to smart street lighting, parking, waste and more. Smart city infrastructure is enabling efficiency, cost reduction and improved living for city occupants and network infrastructure platform helps create these efficiencies.