Vodafone wanted to make a private network affordable and deployable for small businesses, so it took a stab at building a 5G network on its own.
The prototype 5G network uses a credit card-sized Raspberry Pi 4 personal computer and a small, advanced silicon chipset provided by U.K.-based Lime Microsystems.
The concept is to allow small businesses and households to extend 5G coverage and increase capacity where they need it. The prototype was created at Vodafone’s new European R&D center in Málaga, Spain.
They looked at what Raspberry Pi did for computing, and “we wanted to do the same with the network,” said Santiago Tenorio, Vodafone’s director of Network Architecture, who explained the prototype in a video posted online.
Raspberry Pi originally was developed as an affordable, credit-card sized computer for students to learn programming but eventually was adopted by a wider market due to its flexibility and low cost.
Vodafone points out that mobile private networks are usually used by large businesses or organizations that need to connect a variety of devices, machines and autonomous vehicles and robots, such as a large manufacturing plant.
But there are some 22 million small-and-medium-sized businesses across Europe, and they can use a more affordable way to extend coverage too. It can also offer households extended capacity when many residents are online at the same time.
Vodafone’s 5G network built on Raspberry Pi is about the size and cost of a Wi-Fi router, which means a customer could instantly set up their very own private network in a public place such as a coffee shop, or extend the coverage of the public network to a remote location like a basement, according to the operator.
Tenorio also said the case housing the network-in-a-box was created using a 3D printer and it could actually be much smaller. The board design is compliant with open Radio Access Network (RAN) standards.
Now they’re looking for industry collaboration – suppliers willing to play in this space. Demonstrations will take place at Vodafone’s booth during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona starting next Monday, February 27.