VodafoneThree senior RAN strategy and architecture manager Soufiane Ayed held up a small cell project the operator is involved with in the UK city of Glasgow as a model for brownfield open RAN deployments, opening the door to swift rollouts elsewhere.

A man in a suit stands and speaks at a microphone beside a wooden podium. Behind him are ornate wooden panels and a banner that reads “SCONDA Small Cells ORAN in Dense Areas Project,” with images of technology and city infrastructure.

Ayed (pictured, right) told Mobile World Live (MWL) the VodafoneThree deployment as part of the Small Cells O-RAN in Dense Areas (SCONDA) project established a blueprint for future brownfield open RAN rollouts in urban settings and talked us through the process.

SCONDA is a consortium formed to develop a model for open RAN small cell deployments in dense areas. Ayed explained the number of companies involved posed certain challenges because each “has to play their part”.

“We optimised the machinery of delivery by splitting the roles”, he said, highlighting the step change the approach represents compared with when “MNOs used to do it all by themselves”.

Ayed said the old ways are not suitable in the scope of a project like SCONDA: “we have to divide and conquer”.

“Everybody has their own speciality that they bring to the table and that’s how collaboration happens.”

Ayed touched on the challenges beyond the technical, explaining partners must be closely aligned and “have mutual trust”.

SCONDA update
MWL attended the launch of the SCONDA scheme in early 2024. At the time, city councillor Paul Leinster explained the small cell project was the latest step in Digital Glasgow, a programme to boost access to technology and connectivity to open economic opportunities and update public services.

The pre-merger 3 UK was initially tasked with deploying 20 small cells around the city centre, with a target of employing more than 50 sites in the longer term.

A man stands at a podium with a laptop in an ornate wood-paneled room. To his left, a screen displays the Glasgow City Council logo. To his right, a banner reads “SCONDA Small Cells ORAN in Dense Areas Project.” Equipment and microphones are visible.

During an update in Glasgow on 23 June, Leinster (pictured, right) said the deployment progress is “another milestone in our journey to become the most innovative and connected city region across these islands”.

He said digital initiatives are reaping significant benefits for Glasgow’s economy, with tech start-ups and scale-ups contributing more than £2.6 billion.

Leinster believes 5G is a key element in unlocking further gains. He noted fibre had become available to 400,000 more premises since the SCONDA project began, but argued the mobile technology fills coverage gaps “and even offers an alternative”, becoming “increasingly central to how we improve services, experiences and ultimately” quality of life.

SCONDA partner AWTG revealed the number of live sites now stands at 24 and demonstrations on site showed peak data rates of beyond 700Mb/s in the downlink and 150Mb/s up.

AWTG COO Ian Vernon said the number of active sites would stand at 32 by end-June, explaining the small cells on lampposts are one element in a project which also involved delivering an indoor network to the University of Glasgow.

The projects are running in parallel, delivering similar “throughput and, more importantly providing the use cases” for the urban 5G project, Vernon said.

Vernon emphasised the importance of achieving a brownfield open RAN deployment in a dense, urban setting, noting most previous trials had focused on rural environments because “it’s been very difficult to integrate a new technology” into existing mobile networks.

The AWTG executive evidenced his view by pointing to the evolution of mobile technologies, noting it typically took between three-and-five-years to shift between generations.

“It’s never easy for an operator to take in a new technology.”

Risk and reward
Ayed said the SCONDA project’s progress should be credited for tackling a level of complexity he argues no-one else was bold enough to address in the UK so far.

He emphasised the risk of jeopardising VodafoneThree’s existing network by employing openRAN.

“We took the risk.”

Ayed conceded there are other open RAN deployments in the UK; 3’s new partner is a proponent of the approach, but the executive echoed Vernon by noting those have mostly been in rural settings rather than urban and have not focused on integrating with existing infrastructure.

The executive explained the SCONDA project is bigger than VodafoneThree, saying the “UK is not taking enough credit for this project overall”.

Ayed noted operators in the US are highly vocal about deploying small cells in urban settings as an example of why the work in Glasgow should be heralded.

A hand holds a smartphone displaying speed test results. The screen shows download and upload speeds in Mbps for several dates in May 2025. The highest recorded speeds are 679 Mbps download and 141 Mbps upload. The background appears to be an outdoor pavement.

The key element is the mould the SCONDA scheme created: “If it works here, theoretically it should work anywhere”.

Ayed said the set-up “is bullet proof, it is working, we see the results”.

“It was a journey, but we got there.”

How
As Ayed explained, the SCONDA project presented challenges in terms of working with multiple partners and integration with an existing RAN.

Ayed also highlighted internal challenges for the operator, comprising some “cultural resistance”, adjustments to VodafoneThree’s transport network and work involving security.

“I think perhaps the biggest obstacle, number one is getting the architecture right from the outset, so basically you don’t start to do an open network and try to fix it backwards.”

“Think ahead, build an architecture which supports the co-existence of legacy and open RAN. Get the buy in from your team.”

“Take your time and plan the proper architecture before you jump in”.

Ayed believes network operators have hit hurdles in past attempts to deploy small cells because of the number of elements involved. These include a need for local authority approvals, sourcing fibre connections and dealing with the microwave elements: “trying to deal with all the approvals was a nightmare, it’s not our expertise” as operators.

As such, the key step after defining the architecture was sourcing partners which could handle the individual elements required to deliver an open RAN small cell set-up.

In addition to AWTG, the SCONDA project involves connectivity infrastructure-as-a-service specialist Freshwave, consultancy Accenture and software provider Mavenir.

A group of people gathers on a city street corner near a tall, historic building with green window frames. Across the street, a large mural of a pensive woman with braided hair and warm-toned background covers the side of another building.

The project is funded by the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and counts the University of Surrey, University of Glasgow, the Scotland 5G Centre and network management company PI Works among the list of collaborators.

Ayed explained automated network management is a vital element in making the SCONDA model work. In fact, he believes it would be “impossible” to operate the open RAN set up without it.

He highlighted Mavenir’s contribution, explaining it would have been difficult to add the company to its list of mainstream RAN vendors without automation and orchestration.

As an established operator, the list of current vendors spanned big names Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei and Samsung across multiple generations of mobile technology.

The SCONDA model puts distributed units (DUs) in a separate data centre to the centralised units (CU), with radios installed on lampposts.

Ayed said the legwork put in by the SCONDA collaborators means the model could now be swiftly deployed in other cities by building fresh clusters of DUs.

The approach provides the flexibility and scalability required to make economic sense of the set-up, Ayed said.

He acknowledged work is ongoing, but said the “more we do it, the more we feel the gain in terms of economies of scale and cost efficiencies”.