Vodafone has completed its trial of technology from startup Cohere Technology, finding that applying its Universal Spectrum Multiplier (USM) could increase 4G and 5G capacity by 50% without making any other changes to devices or the network.
In October, TMN carried news that Cohere Technology was to trial its Universal Spectrum Multiple (USM) technology with Vodafone. This week the two companies have jointly released news of that trial.
They said that Cohere’s USM software had been tested outdoors and indoors in Vodafone’s 5G network in Ciudad Real, Spain. The USM software was tested in a field environment using 10MHz of spectrum in the 2.1GHz band.
Cohere claimed that, “Based on the performance of the USM software in the trial using multiple handsets, when the software is turned on in low-band or mid-band spectrum, it provided a boost in capacity of up to 50%.”
Vodafone vouched for the results. Its Paco Martin, Group Head of Open RAN at Vodafone, said, “We have been working with Cohere for a long time and we’re extremely pleased to see these promising early results obtained in a real-life urban network, which exceeded our expectations. Cohere’s unique USM software has the potential to improve capacity by up to 50% without the need for new devices or network hardware.”
Hailing the results of the trial, Cohere’s CEO Ray Dolan said, “We are now focused on integrating the USM with partners to make these benefits available to operators globally.”
Previously, Dolan told an audience at TIP’s FYUZ event in October 2023 that Cohere was working to integrate its technology with the baseband of a major OEM. TMN understands that deal may materialise this year.
At that time, Dolan said said that Bell Canada was exploring the idea of asking one vendor to integrate Cohere. And he added that one other North American operator and other global operators were also pressuring the vendor to open up to Cohere.
“We have begun those discussions with one of the largest players. It is possible. It’s not trivial, but if the same information that is exchanged in the architecture that we built today is shared across a standard E2 interface, and if we are able to do our math and insert our software and logic, then we can inform a vendor’s scheduler as to what the spatial plane looks like and the same performance will be delivered.”
