Vodafone and Huawei, through their six joint innovation centers (JICs), have created (partly) the most valuable technologies & services in the market, reinforcing Vodafone’s position and role as the most innovative operator in the industry. Together, Vodafone and Huawei are looking at how to produce genuine breakthroughs, through their JICs, that address genuine customer needs.
With the goal of accelerating wireless evolution, the Mobile Innovation Center (Madrid) was set up in 2006, and a branch was further set up in UK three-year later. A number of its innovations have been commercially applied, including Distributed BTS (BBU + RRU architecture) and SingleRAN, which are now the industry standard. Currently, MIC is running projects covering all strategic wireless areas: SuperMobile, E2E QoS improvement, HetNet, Radio Backhaul, Energy Efficiency and Virtualization.
These successes motivated Vodafone and Huawei to found the Application Innovation Center (Madrid) in late 2007 with the aim of spreading Vodafone’s Asia-born software innovations across the entire Vodafone footprint. The AIC is also focused on understanding Vodafone business & operations, while assuring that the proposed innovations are implemented by Vodafone’s various branches.
In 2008, Vodafone and Huawei launched the Core Innovation Center (Milano) to facilitate the current trends of IT and telecom convergence. Research has already gone through six phases, aligned with Vodafone’s core network strategy and helping its architectural evolution.
In 2010, the Fixed-Mobile Convergence Center (Dusseldorf) was set up to promote FMC technology and E2E solutions. Efficient transmission is also key to reducing costs and improving network capability. In 2011 both companies decided to create a Transmission Innovation Center with offices in three different cities of (Milano, Madrid and Basingstoke). This center has delivered fruitful results in the fields of IP backhaul, IP microwave, and IP backbone synergy with optical.
In addition to jointly innovating technical solutions in network equipment, application and software areas, Huawei and Vodafone are now partnering to work on optimized site energy and infrastructure.
Vodafone has established a Site Solution Innovation Centre (SSIC) hosted by Vodacom in South Africa. As one of the strategic partners Huawei and Vodafone agreed to have a joint collaboration under the SSIC. The SSIC will develop site solutions in the following aspects:
• Accelerate the time-to-market for innovative site technologies; ensure optimal TCO, deployment, maintenance & evolution;
• Focus on compact site solutions, transport, logistics, installation, operation, reliability, sustainability, health, and safety;
• Evaluate the use of innovative site solutions such as community power, to drive community development.
