This is the fourth O-RAN security post from the O-RAN ALLIANCE's WG11 - the Security Working Group, describing the current state and plans for O-RAN security.

The O-RAN ALLIANCE's next Generation Research Group (nGRG) is delighted to publish first three research reports.

• Joint workshop of the two communities took place on November 14-15 in Boston
• Members of both communities agreed to work closely on the open source implementation of O-RAN, including SMO, O-Cloud and other open source RAN functions
• Open source software plays an important role in supporting companies in development, testing and integration of their commercial open and intelligent RAN solutions

The O-RAN ALLIANCE recently accredited two new Open Testing and Integration Centers (OTIC) and extends warm welcome to the O-RAN Ecosystem to:

• Korea OTIC
• North American OTIC at MITRE

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• Fall 2023 PlugFest is hosted by 18 companies in eight countries in Asia, Europe and Americas
• 56 registered companies, many of which participate at more than one venue, bringing the total to 100 registrations
• Focus on progress with intelligent RAN solutions based on O-RAN Radio Intelligent Controllers as well as integration of open and interoperable interfaces

Since March 2023, O-RAN WGs and FGs published 57 technical documents, bringing the total to 101 specification titles in 438 versions.

Four documents represent new titles:

• O-RAN Cloud Conformance Test Specification v1.00
• O-RAN Application Life Cycle Management (LCM) for Deployment Technical Recommendation v1.00
• O-RAN Network Energy Savings Procedures and Performance Metrics v1.00
• O-RANTopology Exposure and Inventory Management Services Use Cases and Requirement Specification v1.00

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• O-RAN ALLIANCE (O-RAN) participants will present demos on-site and at the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition, most of which feature intelligent management and control
• O-RAN representatives will speak at MWC Las Vegas 2023 on interoperability, security, sustainability & standards

The workshop is jointly organized by O-RAN next Generation Research Group (nGRG) and O-RAN Industry Engagement Focus Group (IEFG).

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O-RAN companies plan to showcase 3 on-site and 15 virtual demonstrations, including innovations such as indoor positioning applications, cloud economics with 5G and AI applications, intelligent RAN control, machine learning load balancing, and energy-efficient network deployment solutions.

O-RAN Release 003 includes enhancements to RAN Slicing and SMO features, and several new features.

It also includes 10 new specification titles.

Next Generation Research Group (nGRG) is a task force within O-RAN ALLIANCE, which focuses on research of open and intelligent RAN principles in 6G and future network standards.

The nGRG plans to hold its 2nd workshop on February 16, 2023 in Prague, Czech Republic, complementing the O-RAN ALLIANCE F2F meetings running in that week.

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58 O-RAN ALLIANCE members and participants present 65 demonstrations of their O-RAN based technology and solutions at MWC Barcelona 2023 or the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition

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