NEC Corporation has obtained O-RAN Certification from Japan OTIC (Open Testing & Integration Centre) for its MB5450 5G base station radio unit (RU), certifying that the RU conforms with the O-RAN Fronthaul Interface Specifications.

This is the first certification issued by Japan OTIC since its establishment, making NEC the first major global vendor to obtain this certification.

Read the full announcement here.

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USA Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded nearly $5.5 million in the first round of grants.

This first round of funding will support R&D and testing activities related to evaluating energy efficiency, measuring performance of interoperable equipment and testing methods for sharing spectrum.

Read the full announcement here.

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The OTIC has been approved by the O-RAN ALLIANCE with the official designation of “North American OTIC in the Boston Area (Northeastern University)” after a careful review of criteria and guidelines.

Read the full announcement here.

NTT Docomo says it will have a competitive open RAN (O-RAN) solution on the market by the end of the year.

Read the full article here.

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The report demonstrates that Open RAN offers important cybersecurity advantages, that risks sometimes attributed to Open RAN are common to traditional RAN deployments as well, and that these risks can be mitigated and managed through the recommendations presented in the report. The report will inform Quad members’ domestic and shared approaches to Open RAN security priorities and will also serve as a global resource to support adoption of open, interoperable, and trusted network architectures.

Read the report here.

Built on the Keysight O-RAN Architect solution, the lab offers a setup to conduct radio unit testing.

Read the full announcement here.

Aira Technologies’ AI-based High Fidelity MIMO Channel Estimation and Prediction application (xApp) utilizes cutting-edge proprietary machine learning algorithms to dramatically improve channel estimation, prediction and beam management delivering better throughput, resulting in better energy efficiency and lower total cost of ownership

SARATOGA, CALIFORNIA; February 16, 2023 – Aira Technologies, a pioneer in the application of Machine Learning (ML) to radically improve wireless telecommunications, today announced that it plans to deliver a near-real time application (xApp) that will work in concert with the VMware RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) platform to deliver advanced 5G RAN capabilities that have long been requested by the TIP RIA sub-group of the TIP Open RAN 5G NR Project Group. The TIP RIA subgroup is led by Vodafone, BT and, T-Mobile USA.

Read the full press release here.

Keysight Technologies enabled Pegatron to obtain the first O-RAN ALLIANCE End-to-End (E2E) System Integration Badge from Auray Open Testing and Integration Center (OTIC) and Security Lab.

Read the full press release here.

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PLDT’s wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) has successfully deployed a fully functional Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) Proof of Concept (PoC), a first in the Philippines. The PoC was completed together with its partner NTT DOCOMO, INC. at the PLDT-Smart Technology Laboratory (Technolab) in Makati City.  

Read the full announcement here

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Sites consist of general-purpose server equipment and can be used with all 5G smartphones. Full scale development planned to start in 2024.

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KDDI CORPORATION announced that, in cooperation with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Fujitsu Limited, it initiated the commercial deployment of O-RAN ⁽¹⁾ compliant 5G Open Virtual Radio Access Network (hereinafter Open vRAN) sites in Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, on January 19, 2023.

Read the full press release here.

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Two O-RAN demonstrations were presented at MWC Shanghai 2021

In the given Covid-19 pandemic situation, two O-RAN demonstrations were presented at MWC Shanghai 2021:

Sageran is demonstrating a complete O-RAN white-box small cell solution based on an x86 platform with an FPGA Accelerator card that showcases a stand-alone end-to-end use case using white box hardware for an indoor cell which supports MIMO and all 4T4R. The demo is hosted at MWC Shanghai 2021 by Sageran, booth N2.C114, as well as at the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition.

VIAVI and Rohde & Schwarz are jointly demonstrating validation of open fronthaul performance. As network operators adopt disaggregated, multi-vendor networks, rigorous testing of performance and interoperability must accompany conformance testing. This demo showcases generation and delivery of typical standards based testcase IQ data to the O-RU utilizing the Lower Layer Split Option 7.2x fronthaul interface with the VIAVI TM500 O-RU Tester. Moreover, uplink and downlink fronthaul logs are captured, and RF signal generation and capture are performed using the Rohde & Schwarz vector signal generator and signal and spectrum analyzer hardware along with VSE Software for signal analysis. Testcase workflow is simplified for the end user utilizing the VIAVI O-RU Test Manager, providing a single point of test control. The demo is hosted at MWC Shanghai 2021 by VIAVI Solutions, booth N1.B137, as well as at the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition.

5 more virtual demos for MWC Shanghai 2021 have enriched the O-RAN Virtual Exhibition

ITRI is demonstrating traffic steering xApps and Near-Real-Time Radio Intelligent Controller platform utilizing E2 procedures to monitor cell and UE metrics generated by RAN simulator and to offload some UE to neighbor cells such that the A1 policy is guaranteed.

NVIDIA and VMWare are jointly demonstrating link to virtual demo PoC of Aerial 5G gNB Layer-1 orchestration on VMWare telco cloud platform. This demo showcases NVIDIA Aerial SDK as cloud native function, with docker containers and Kubernetes manifests. Aerial cuBB, onboarded to VMWare telco cloud platform offers service agility, operational efficiency and reduced CAPEX/OPEX through MANO.

Viettel is demonstrating an end to end solution based on Intel server (Xeon-D) with NIC (XXV710-DA2T) that is integrated with an outdoor micro O-RU via an Open Front Haul Interface. The base station connects with EPC and Viettel’s eNB perform a complete NSA (Option 3X) white-box base station solution and ready for Commercial Deployment. The integrated system is verified using a commercial UE through the attach and speed test.

Altiostar has teamed up with Airtel and NEC to demonstrate interoperability testing and integration of massive MIMO radio units (O-RU) and virtualized distributed units (O-DU) running on commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) servers. The demonstration features a commercial end-to-end Open Fronthaul interface based on O-RAN specifications.

Parallel Wireless is demonstrating 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G O-RAN compliant macro Open RAN to expand and modernize cellular networks with reduced TCO & simplified maintenance. It’s been proven in rural in 50+ networks globally and is now scalable for urban 2G 3G 4G while unleashing the full 5G potential.

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