- Mavenir Open vRAN and O-RAN compliant small cells central to success of Three UK’s Glasgow City Centre roll-out – boosting coverage and capacity across a high-demand, dense urban environment
- Landmark trial demonstrates the benefit of deploying Open RAN small cells alongside existing macro networks to solve blackspot issues
GLASGOW, Scotland, May 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mavenir, the cloud-native network infrastructure provider, working in collaboration with operator Three UK and the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, Red Hat, has successfully demonstrated the performance benefits of 5G non-standalone O-RAN compliant small cells in Glasgow City Centre – doubling 5G speeds at peak times.
This milestone UK-first trial of Open RAN in a dense urban environment also marks the first live deployment of O-RAN compliant small cells working alongside legacy macro cells from traditional vendors in this environment – driving a significant reduction in traffic congestion by delivering high-quality coverage and additional capacity. During the initial phase of the trial, both 4G and 5G speeds doubled during the busiest times of the day, with Three UK’s 5G speeds reaching an impressive 520Mbps across the trial area. The capacity boost also cascaded into further performance and user experience improvements in surrounding sites.
Following the successful trial of 18 live sites in Glasgow City Centre, the project will now move into its final deployment phase, bringing the total number of Open RAN small cell sites to 34.
Mavenir’s roll-out of a small cell densification layer for Three UK is being delivered as part of the SCONDA (Small Cells O-RAN in Dense Areas) project – a key connectivity initiative backed by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). The project represents a significant step forward for Open RAN in the UK by trialing – for the first time – the integration of a full decentralized Open RAN architecture with existing traditional infrastructure into a high traffic, high footfall city setting.
Mavenir is delivering a full 4G and 5G O-RAN solution, including its OpenBeam small cell radios running on Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes. Mavenir 4G and 5G small cell radios are being deployed on lamp posts across Glasgow to offload macro traffic and enable automation of network performance within a challenging multi-vendor, multi-technology radio environment. Three UK is leveraging Red Hat OpenShift to build and deliver the Open vRAN network, integrated into the existing 4G core of Three UK, and operating alongside the operator’s traditional RAN.
Brandon Larson, SVP, Cloud and AI at Mavenir, said: “This network densification project proves that the Open RAN layer built by Mavenir can efficiently and effectively meet the needs of Three UK and its customers in one of the busiest cities in the UK. Our solution has delivered a 2x improvement in 5G speeds, a measurable uplift in capacity, and handover of customer traffic has been outstanding. This powerfully demonstrates that Open RAN can be fully integrated alongside traditional vendors – a breakthrough that will get the attention of radio network design teams around the world for the cost savings and flexibility it offers.”
Iain Milligan, Chief Network Officer at Three UK said: “Mavenir and Red Hat have been exceptional partners on this groundbreaking project – the UK’s first Open RAN trial to tackle the real-world complexity of a dense urban environment. We have pushed the boundaries and proven that the Open RAN approach is a hugely valuable addition to network design and deployment.”
He added: “Urban deployments bring a different level of technical and operational challenge compared to rural environments. We’ve had to navigate integration with legacy systems, security layers, and evolving software – all while delivering measurable improvements for customers. The trial results are encouraging and provide a strong foundation for further scaling and optimisation of Open RAN in cities.”
Honoré LaBourdette, Vice President, Global Telco Ecosystem at Red Hat, said: “Red Hat and Mavenir share a commitment to delivering optimized Open RAN solutions for service providers to achieve improved network performance and unlock the next generation of 5G use cases. We are pleased to collaborate with Mavenir to implement an integrated 5G Standalone Open RAN solution, powered by Red Hat OpenShift, to help Three UK deliver enhanced customer experiences and streamline operations for the city of Glasgow.”
With this latest deployment, Mavenir and Red Hat are continuing to offer carrier-grade telco cloud solutions to mobile network operators, leveraging a decade of well-established collaboration. Mavenir RAN workloads on Red Hat OpenShift offer an attractive value proposition for the mobile network operators.
Key benefits delivered by Mavenir using Red Hat OpenShift include:
- Full stack automation: Integration of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes with Mavenir’s Cloud-Native Automation provides full stack automation and streamlined day-1 and day-2 operational management.
- Pre-integrated and pre-tested reference architectures: Red Hat and Mavenir help minimize complexity and reduce time spent on integration by providing a common, pre-integrated reference architecture.
- Scalable design and faster time-to-market: Offering design flexibility to scale the architecture with Mavenir workloads on Red Hat OpenShift and leveraging additional tools for faster deployments.
- Comprehensive Security Capabilities: Mavenir’s Open RAN solution on Red Hat OpenShift provides mobile networks with core platform security controls, including admission controllers, container isolation via Security Context Constraints (SCCs), runtime protection using kernel-level security modules (seccomp, SELinux), role-based access controls (RBAC) and network segmentation through CNI/OVN. These capabilities align with industry practices, enabling operators to implement hardened configurations for compliance objectives.
Notes to editors
The SCONDA project is a partnership with Three UK, Mavenir, AWTG, Freshwave, PI Works, the 5G Scotland Centre and Accenture, with the support of Glasgow City Council and funding from the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
Three UK doubles Glasgow city centre speeds with UK-first Open RAN roll-out
About Three UK:
Hutchison 3G UK Limited, trading as Three UK, is a British telecommunications company based in Reading, England. It is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of CK Hutchison Holdings, a limited liability Cayman Islands company registered and listed in Hong Kong. Three is the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United Kingdom, with about 10.9 million subscribers as of November 2024. For more information, please visit https://www.three.co.uk/
About Mavenir:
Mavenir is building the future of networks today with cloud-native, AI-enabled solutions which are green by design, empowering operators to realize the benefits of 5G and achieve intelligent, automated, programmable networks. As the pioneer of Open RAN and a proven industry disruptor, Mavenir’s award-winning solutions are delivering automation and monetization across mobile networks globally, accelerating software network transformation for 300+ Communications Service Providers in over 120 countries, which serve more than 50% of the world’s subscribers. For more information, please visit www.mavenir.com
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Mavenir PR Contact:
Emmanuela Spiteri
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