Cohere Technologies added former Vodafone Group CTO Johan Wibergh (pictured) to its board of directors alongside unveiling an automated MU-MIMO beamforming product.

Wibergh stepped down from Vodafone in December 2022 after almost eight years with the company, during which he played a role in its 5G deployment and digital platform development.

Prior to joining Vodafone, Wibergh held senior management positions at Ericsson from 1997 until 2015.

Vodafone conducted a laboratory trial in 2021 employing Cohere Technologies’ open RAN components.

Cohere Technologies also appointed Amit Mital to the board. He served as a special assistant to the US president from April 2021 to August 2022, focusing on strategy and policy for cybersecurity and emerging technologies

Mital was previously CEO and founder of Kernel Labs, and EVP, GM and CTO at Symantec Corporation. He also worked for Microsoft for 20 years.

Cohere Technologies last month secured funding from Bell Canada, which plans to trial the US company’s universal spectrum multiplier (USM) software.

The company has also conducted trials with Telstra and Deutsche Telekom.

Alongside the board appointments, Cohere Technologies unveiled Dynamic Network Alignment (DNA) software it claimed is the industry’s first automated network calibration tool for multi-user (MU)-MIMO beamforming.

Cohere Technologies stated the software works with USM to provide “zero touch” alignment, and is also available as a standalone product.

CTO Shlomo Rakib stated DNA will provide capacity and spectral efficiency benefits to operators, and eliminate service disruptions and the need to replace antennas and radios on site.

The DNA product will available for legacy MU-MIMO base stations later this year, with Massive MIMO compatibility to follow.