O-RAN Announces Certification and Badging Program, Next Generation Research Group, Open RAN Summit, and Results of Spring 2022 PlugFest

Since its beginning in 2018, the O-RAN ALLIANCE’s mission has been transforming Radio Access Networks towards open, intelligent, virtualized and fully interoperable RAN. Now, the O-RAN Ecosystem counts more than 340 companies and institutions from all over the world. O-RAN’s emphasis on openness is reflected in its setup as an open technical organization, according to the WTO criteria, where incumbent as well as emerging industry players or academic institutions can join and contribute.

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O-RAN ALLIANCE Industry Summit June 2022

The O-RAN ALLIANCE Industry Summit June 2022 concluded on June 29, 2022 and is now available for on-demand replay at our website.

O-RAN Certification and Badging Program in cooperation with Open Test and Integration Centres (OTIC)

O-RAN ALLIANCE has launched its Certification and Badging program. O-RAN certificates state that an equipment or function is conformant to O-RAN specifications, whereas the O-RAN badges confirm interoperability or end-to-end functionality of an O-RAN solution. O-RAN certificates and badges will be issued by the Open Testing and Integration Centers, or OTICs.

The OTICs provide collaborative, open, and impartial working environment to ensure consistency and quality of testing of O-RAN products and solutions. O-RAN ALLIANCE has just approved the 7^th OTIC and first one in Americas: Kyrio O-RAN Test and Integration Lab hosted by CableLabs.

See the full list of approved OTICs at our website.

O-RAN next Generations Research Group will focus on future network standards

O-RAN ALLIANCE has formed its next Generations Research Group (nGRG).

“The nGRG will focus on research of open and intelligent RAN principles in 6G and future network standards,” said Chih-Lin I, Co-chair of O-RAN Technical Steering Committee and Chief Scientist, Wireless Technologies, China Mobile Research Institute. “We are seeing very positive uptake on nGRG from the O-RAN ecosystem as well as the academic sphere and we are looking forward to seeing further progress of the research.”

Open RAN Summit @ Fyuz to be held on 25-26 October 2022 in Madrid

O-RAN ALLIANCE is delighted to announce the Open RAN Summit @ Fyuz, powered by the O-RAN ALLIANCE and Telecom Infra Project, which will take place in Madrid on October 25-26, 2022. We welcome TIP as they join us for this combined event.

Designed to bring together stakeholders from across the ecosystem, the Open RAN Summit at Fyuz will deliver the latest from the industry as we drive towards more disaggregated, intelligent, open, and fully interoperable mobile networks. All of that, served in a unique experience combining technology with gastronomy to stir your imagination. Learn more and register at the Fyuz event website.

O-RAN Global PlugFest Spring 2022 concluded at 3 continents with 50 participants

Starting from this year, O-RAN ALLIANCE switches to hosting two global PlugFests per year, to accommodate for ever increasing interest of the diverse O-RAN community to efficiently test and integrate their O-RAN solutions.

O-RAN Global PlugFest Spring 2022 took place at 3 continents with 50 participating companies or institutions, some of which participated at more than one venue.

In North America, the O-RAN ‘PoCFest’ hosted by AT&T and DISH spanned across 4 labs in cooperation with several universities:

• TIP Community Lab at Meta, Menlo Park CA
• POWDER Lab and NSF PAWR SITE with the University of Utah
• COSMOS Lab and NSF PAWR SITE with the Rutgers University, Columbia University, NYU Wireless
• InterOperability Lab at the University of New Hampshire

Activities focused on demonstrations of use cases within the O-RAN Use Cases Detailed Specification version 6.0 & 7.0, as well as use cases that are currently in the process of being specified such as Energy Saving / Energy Efficiency. More than 20 unique O-RAN components were tested for conformance to O-RAN specifications.

The Proof-of-Concept approach also supported the evolution of testbeds across companies and research institutions, which is expected to accelerate the availability of next generation research platforms, consistent with the mission of the recently established nGRG within O-RAN.

In addition to the hosts and labs, participants included Analog Devices, Anritsu, Calnex Solutions, Cisco, Fujitsu, HCL, highstreet technologies, IP Infusion, ITRI, Juniper Networks, Keysight Technologies, META, NSF ARA: Living Wireless Lab, NSF PAWR: AERPAW, NSF PAWR: Colosseum, Rohde & Schwarz, VIAVI Solutions, VMware and Wind River.

In Europe, the O-RAN PlugFest Spring 2022 hosted by Telefonica took place at the European OTIC in Madrid.

Activities focused on testing of open Xhaul transport solutions, including data plane functional and performance testing, as well as synchronization. Testing scenarios were mimicking realistic deployments with diversity of technologies, protocols, and encapsulations, to obtain meaningful insights on the solutions under test. There were three setups with different transport equipment, two instrumentation vendors, and one transceiver manufacturer.

In addition to the host, participants included ADVA Optical Networking, Juniper Networks, Keysight Technologies, Precision Optical Transceivers, Ribbon and VIAVI Solutions.

In Asia, O-RAN PlugFest Spring 2022 hosted by Auray took place at the Auray OTIC and Security Lab.

Divided into 18 test cases, activities focused on verification and validation of applicability of tests in a lab environment, specifically for Open Fronthaul tests, end-to-end tests, and Denial of Service (DoS) and blind exploitation types of security tests.

Performed actions covered a dry run of the O-RAN Certification and Badging, verifying the related processes and procedures.

The PlugFest also included Open RAN Testing and Optimization for Industry IoT – smart scoring methodology for end-to-end service experience based on 3GPP 5G E2E KPIs.

In addition to the host, participants included Alpha Networks, Askey Computer, Calnex Solutions, Foxconn, Institute for Information Industry, Inventec, IP Infusion, ITRI, JPC connectivity, Keysight Technologies, Lions Technology, LITEON, MICAS, NKG, Pegatron, QCT, REIGN Technology, Rohde & Schwarz, Sageran, VIAVI Solutions and WNC.

The O-RAN ALLIANCE is preparing a web announcement and a Virtual Showcase to allow interested public to explore the O-RAN Global PlugFest Spring 2022 in detail – soon to be available at our website.

About O-RAN ALLIANCE

The O-RAN ALLIANCE is a world-wide community of more than 340 mobile operators, vendors, and research & academic institutions operating in the Radio Access Network (RAN) industry. As the RAN is an essential part of any mobile network, the O-RAN ALLIANCE’s mission is to re-shape the industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualized and fully interoperable mobile networks. The new O-RAN specifications enable a more competitive and vibrant RAN supplier ecosystem with faster innovation to improve user experience. O-RAN based mobile networks at the same time improve the efficiency of RAN deployments as well as operations by the mobile operators. To achieve this, the O-RAN ALLIANCE publishes new RAN specifications, releases open software for the RAN, and supports its members in integration and testing of their implementations.

For more information, please visit www.o-ran.org.

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Contact information

O-RAN ALLIANCE PR Contact

Zbynek Dalecky
pr@o-ran.org
O-RAN ALLIANCE e.V.
Buschkauler Weg 27
53347 Alfter/Germany