O-RAN ALLIANCE Welcomes New Board Members and Announces Further Progress and Demos Towards Open and Intelligent RAN
Bonn, Germany:
- KDDI, Rakuten Mobile and Vodafone are elected to the O-RAN ALLIANCE Board of Directors
- Newly released technical specifications enrich the standards for developing O-RAN networks
- O-RAN Security Task Group addresses the security aspects of open RAN
- O-RAN Virtual Exhibition Provides Insights on Companies Progressing with their O-RAN Implementations
The O-RAN ALLIANCE concluded its first two years of successful operation, delivering major progress in standardizing open and intelligent Radio Access Networks (RAN).
Welcoming Rakuten Mobile as its new operator member, the O-RAN ALLIANCE now represents the leadership of 27 major carriers joining forces towards making the RAN industry truly open, intelligent, virtualized and fully interoperable. With strong support of contributors and academic contributors, O-RAN now has over 230 companies driving the definition and realization of O-RAN technology.
At its Annual General Meeting held on October 27, 2020, the O-RAN ALLIANCE Members have elected the Board of Directors for the upcoming 2-year term. 3 new operators are coming on the Board: KDDI, Rakuten Mobile and Vodafone, bringing it to its full strength of 15 members.
“In its first two years the O-RAN ALLIANCE has driven a tremendous pace in delivering new standards for open and intelligent RAN, and has helped facilitate implementations by releasing open software and supporting the integration and testing of concrete O-RAN implementations,” said Andre Fuetsch, Chairman of the O-RAN ALLIANCE and Chief Technology Officer of AT&T. “We welcome the new members of the O-RAN Board, and look forward to the continuing contributions from all O-RAN participants that will drive a global mobile network ecosystem based on openness, interoperability and intelligence.”
“The expanding operator commitment validates the O-RAN ALLIANCE‘s approach to drive RAN transformation by creating global standards for open and intelligent RAN,” said Alex Jinsung Choi, COO of the O-RAN ALLIANCE and SVP Technology Strategy & Innovation, Deutsche Telekom. “The alignment of the ecosystem building effort with other major Standards Development Organizations, the close cooperation with the O-RAN Software Community and the support for the worldwide Open Test and Integration Centres are concrete steps to accelerate the commercial availability of multi-vendor O-RAN compliant technology.”
“We are very excited to work with O-RAN ALLIANCE partners in acceleration and adoption of the open and intelligent RAN network,” said Tatsuo Sato, vice president and managing officer, technology planning, KDDI CORPORATION. “We expect O-RAN openness and intelligence bring us enhanced RAN innovations and cost-effective and flexible network.”
“Through our work on our mobile network in Japan, we have shown that open, interoperable and disaggregated RAN is a valid alternative to traditional network architecture,” commented Tareq Amin, Representative Director, Executive Vice President and CTO, Rakuten Mobile, Inc. “As a new member of the O-RAN ALLIANCE, we look forward to sharing the lessons learned from building our 4G/5G commercial network to accelerate the establishment of fully open standards for RAN and contribute to the development of a rich and diverse vendor ecosystem.”
“The O-RAN ALLIANCE has become a key enabler of the OPEN RAN vision,” said Nadia Benabdallah, Head of Networks, Vodafone Group. “In the next few years, it is essential that we set out a plan for truly transformational initiatives, while ensuring end-to-end System Integration and delivering a quality service to our customers. These are the most complex and important areas to address. In order to deliver on these promises, the evolution of OPEN RAN requires a single voice, and therefore we are delighted to increase our effort within the O-RAN ALLIANCE to make that happen.”
20 O-RAN Specifications Released since June 2020
The new set of specifications adds to the total of 40 standards in 73 versions.
O-RAN specifications published in 2nd half of 2020 introduce the initial version of O2 interface general aspects and principles, the HW reference design for the indoor picocells in 7.2 and 8.0 split, as well as an end to end system testing framework.
Publishing the Criteria and Guidelines for the Open Testing and Integration Centres (OTIC) initiates the global platform for testing and integration of O-RAN based network equipment.
15 other released specifications represent newer versions to existing O-RAN standards, enriching them with new functions according to the O-RAN Architecture.
For more details on the new specifications, please check this O-RAN blog post.
Disclaimer: This content is distributed by Business Wire India.
