Connect 5G and Xtreme5G Collaborate on Industry-First Edge 5G Stand Alone Magma Evolved Packet Core Built on Arm

Connect 5G and Xtreme5G announce successful trial of industry-first open-source 5G Stand Alone “Magma” Evolved Packet Core built on Arm edge device for network-in-a-box solution

Connect 5G in collaboration with Xtreme5G announced that they reached a significant milestone in their 5G roadmap, which addresses the digital divide in rural America. In a first for the industry, Connect 5G has successfully integrated the open-source New Radio (NR) Evolved Packet Core (EPC), “Magma”, deployed on an Arm®-based edge device supporting a Stand Alone (5G-SA) radio. This network in-a-box edge solution achieved 550Mbps Downlink with 55Mbps Uplink on a single 40 MHz channel in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum, with high expectations for coming tests on wider channels. The trial took place together with Xtreme5G in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania early October 2022.

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“This is a game changer for Fixed Wireless Carriers, Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs), and Private 5G operators who now will be able to provide highly reliable and affordable high-speed internet access services to rural communities based on the global 5G standard. This integrated solution gives a great commercial advantage by having the Next Generation packet Core (NGC) deployed together with the 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) at the edge of the network as a self-contained unit, yielding significant cost savings on the needed backhaul capacity and improves availability. In addition, key U.S. funding targets can now be achieved and thus unleashing government funds for deployments,” said Patrik Melander, Chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Connect 5G.

David Tews, President, and CEO of Xtreme5G said, “the pre-integrated solution can operate in both 4G-LTE and 5G using CBRS spectrum as well as on other licensed bands. 5G-SA technology provides substantial speed and latency improvements when compared to 4G-LTE. 5G technology provides an incremental advantage over traditional fiber-to-home broadband internet access by allowing rapid deployment of the network for a fraction of the cost and fraction of the time that is required to build the fiber infrastructure in rural areas.”

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The solution
The solution is based on the Magma open-source EPC/NGC, which was deployed on an Arm Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) device and integrated with an Ericsson 4408 Radio. The Arm architecture was selected as the primary target for the Magma EPC solution deployment because it provides the best performance relative to the power consumption. The low power profile of Arm-based SoCs provide significant cost savings on the power consumption required to operate the device and do not require additional cooling capacity for the outdoor cabinets.

“As an industry, it is our responsibility to bring the benefits of 5G technology to everyone in the world by closing the gap to better connectivity and access,” said Eddie Ramirez, vice president of go-to-market, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm. “It is in Arm’s DNA to provide the specialized processing and performance required for workloads such as high-speed networking, while navigating challenging constraints such as ultra-low power consumption. Together with Connect 5G, Xtreme 5G, and the Magma community we look forward to how this new Network-In-A-Box solution helps spread much-needed connectivity to rural communities.”

“The unique feature of this solution is its ability to be deployed as a distributed network made up of multiple self-contained Network-in-a-box sites,” said Jordan Vrtanoski, Chief Architect in Connect 5G. “The solution was designed from the ground up to allow the gNB and the NGC to be deployed in the same cabinet (one box). Having the whole NGC (5G EPC) deployed on the edge of the radio network. Deploying the EPC close to the edge allows offloading of the traffic to the nearest point of presence (POP) which reduces the need for high-capacity backhaul to the main data center. This means that the end users can enjoy faster speeds and lower latency. Also, the self-contained site means that the site can remain operational and provide reliable internet to the end users (through the nearest POP) even in cases where the connectivity to the operator’s data center is lost.”

The Forbes magazine estimated that around 42 million Americans still lack access to broadband internet. For the ones that have, the rural areas which represent around 30% of the current internet users, are limited to a basic service with lower speeds. This problem with internet access became painfully obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic when social interactions moved from the physical space to the internet.

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