Firecell, CloudRAN.AI collaborate to cut cost and complexity of private 5G

Studies have shown that private 5G deployment is set for continued steady growth over the next five years, largely driven by new network deployment opportunities for system integrators (SIs), but despite the growth, SI-led deployments consistently run into complexity and total cost of ownership issues, obstacles that a partnership between CloudRAN.AI and Firecell aims to address.

Founded in 2021, Firecell serves system integrators and enterprises in ports, factories, defence, logistics and critical infrastructure, and develops purpose-built private 5G connectivity for industrial environments. Its services integrate hardware-agnostic, European sovereign core networks including programmable RAN, AI-driven network intelligence and management systems.

Following its recent merger with Accelleran, the company now operates across France, Belgium, the UK, Germany and Poland, with deployments in Europe, the US and Asia.

CloudRAN.AI provides private 5G and radio access services designed for enterprise and industrial deployments. Its portfolio encompasses scalable radio access network (RAN) architecture for outdoor and complex indoor coverage with artificial intelligence (AI)-native network planning (Megrez) and mission-critical communications (MCX).

By combining Firecell’s delivery model with CloudRAN.AI’s modular radio architectures, the two companies aim to make private 5G faster to deploy and more cost-competitive against Wi-Fi on sites where the economics have historically made it hard to justify. Moreover, they wish to expand the radio hardware options available to SIs, focusing on reducing total cost of ownership and on-site deployment time.

The combined architecture, available immediately across Europe and North America, is also designed to meet the performance requirements of demanding enterprise and industrial environments.

“Private 5G is moving from large flagship deployments toward a much higher volume of mid-size industrial and enterprise sites,” said Firecell CEO Claude Seyrat. “At that scale, total cost of ownership and deployment speed determine whether a project gets approved. This partnership gives system integrators the hardware economics and deployment simplicity to compete on those projects, backed by the performance that the most demanding use cases require.”

The integrated portfolio covers two common deployment scenarios. For outdoor coverage, Firecell will offer CloudRAN.AI’s 10W and 40W All-in-One radios, which combine baseband and radio in a single unit, reducing components and expediting installation.

For complex indoor environments such as hospitals, multi-storey facilities and compartmentalised buildings, the companies have a Pico Radio Unit Active DAS architecture, in which multiple units operate as a unified coverage layer to reduce handover issues and maintain connectivity as devices move through a building.

The collaboration also supports multi-region roll-outs with the frequency band diversity required across European and North American markets. For any project that is said to require “strong” outdoor or complex indoor coverage, Firecell assured that it could deliver the CloudRAN.AI radio portfolio through its partner network.

“This partnership makes it easier for system integrators to deliver private 5G at the speed and cost enterprise sites require,” said Michel Trudelle, partnership director at CloudRAN.AI.

“Through Firecell’s ecosystem, system integrators can access CloudRAN.AI All-in-One radios for efficient outdoor coverage and Active DAS for complex indoor environments – so they can standardise designs, reduce on-site complexity and deploy repeatably with performance that holds up in real conditions,” he said.