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T-Mobile makes AI-RAN call on live network with Nokia and NVIDIA

The test used an active Bellevue cell site, commercial network equipment and handsets. It validates one call, not an AI-RAN rollout at scale.

T-Mobile, Nokia and NVIDIA announced on October 21 that they completed a call over AI-RAN infrastructure installed at a cell site on the operator’s live commercial network in Bellevue, Washington. Nokia calls it the first such call on a live network. This is a specific validation test; it does not show that AI-RAN is deployed across T-Mobile’s network or that customers already receive a speed improvement. [1][3]

The companies say the setup used a Nokia Massive MIMO radio, its 5G anyRAN software and servers based on NVIDIA Aerial RAN Computer. It connected to the existing standalone 5G core and commercial user devices. The configuration moves GPU-accelerated radio processing beyond the lab, but the parties did not disclose a measured customer capacity or coverage gain in this announcement. [1][2]

Nokia plans to extend field trials to other spectrum bands and run AI inference workloads alongside radio functions. Light Reading notes that performance and deployment details remain limited. This test is separate from the uplink measurements Deutsche Telekom and Nokia reported in a laboratory on the same day. The photograph shows a T-Mobile office in Bellevue in 2013; it does not depict the cell site used for the call. [1][3]

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