Vodafone has continued its radio access network (RAN) expansion efforts, enlisting the Aptiv-owned Wind River to support its Open RAN efforts in Europe.

The vendor will provide the containers-as-a-service (CaaS) layer for Vodafone atop technology from Samsung, which was unveiled as its primary partner for large-scale Open RAN on the continent last week.

Based on the Edge infrastructure-focused open source StarlingX project, Wind River’s cloud platform provides both a Kubernetes and container-based distributed cloud architecture. This potentially means network operators like Vodafone can use it to power distributed Edge networks more efficiently.

“Vodafone continues to advance and collaborate with the industry in realizing the promise of Open RAN,” said Paul Miller, Wind River’s chief technology officer. “Wind River cloud platform delivers the scalable, distributed cloud infrastructure service providers need to run next-generation networks efficiently.”

Vodafone’s Open RAN deployments are already underway, with its first site in Hannover, Germany, already in operation. A second, in the northeastern city of Wismar, is set to come online in early 2026.

The carrier’s Open RAN deals were part of a wider RAN buildout that saw Ericsson become its exclusive provider in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Portugal, while Nokia was brought in to support deployments in Europe and Africa.

Vodafone is conducting a five-year RAN investment venture in a bid to build out its capacity to meet growing demand for both 5G and 5G standalone (SA). Among its expansions was its newly converged UK arm, VodafoneThree, which enlisted both Ericsson and Nokia to expand and upgrade its network infrastructure.

For Wind River, the Vodafone deal marks another milestone, almost one year on from the vendor hitting the headlines after it was brought in by Boost Mobile to replace VMware as the carrier’s long-time container-as-a-service (CaaS) provider.

Over the summer, CTO Miller suggested it won out on that headline-grabbing contract from big-name competitors like Amazon Web Services and Red Hat because of its automation and integration capabilities.

Earlier this year, Wind River unveiled automation and optimization enhancements to its Studio Operator product, specifically focusing on virtual radio access networks (vRAN).