• 55 major industry players participated at the plugfest across Asia, Europe and North America
•
Open Testing and Integration Centres (OTICs) provided a collaborative,
open, and impartial working environment for testing and integration
• O-RAN Plugfest Virtual Showcase will provide closer look at the plugfest in digital form
BONN, Germany-Saturday 17 October 2020 [ AETOS Wire ]
(BUSINESS
WIRE) -- The O-RAN ALLIANCE successfully conducted its second worldwide
plugfest and proof of concept to demonstrate the functionality as well
as the multi-vendor interoperability of O-RAN based network equipment.
At four venues across the globe, in total 55 companies came together to
deal with the functional, interoperability and performance challenges of
the O-RAN ecosystem. Test scenarios have successfully passed, proving
the readiness of O-RAN implementations for commercial rollout.
“Testing
and integration are crucial for developing a commercially available
open RAN ecosystem and that’s why the O-RAN ALLIANCE provides its member
companies with an efficient global plugfest framework, which
complements the O-RAN specification effort as well as the O-RAN Software
Community,” said Andre Fuetsch, Chairman of the O-RAN ALLIANCE and
Chief Technology Officer of AT&T. “The joint, open, and coordinated
effort greatly accelerates the technical evaluation of O-RAN solutions
and effectively avoids duplication of efforts for all involved parties
whether network operators or solution providers.”
Asia
The
O-RAN plugfest/PoC in East Asia was conducted in various operator and
vendor labs in Japan and China. Activities in Japan were hosted by NTT
DOCOMO, KDDI and SoftBank Corp., and activities in China were hosted in
China OTIC labs. One set of scenarios focused on multi-vendor
interoperability using O-RAN’s open interfaces: Open Fronthaul (OFH),
Fronthaul Multiplexer (FHM), X2, A1, E2, F1 and E1. Other set of
scenarios also involved RAN virtualization and RAN Intelligent
Controllers (RIC). The East Asian plugfest was supported by 16
companies. Apart from the hosts there were: Altran, Astri, CIG, Fujitsu,
JMA Wireless, Keysight Technologies, Kyocera, Mavenir, NEC, NXP,
Radisys, Samsung and Toshiba.
Naoki Tani, Executive Vice
President and Chief Technology Officer of NTT DOCOMO, commented: "We
believe widespread availability of O-RAN compliant solutions will enable
building highly flexible 5G networks, and are pleased with the
expansion and enhancement of multi-vendor RAN activities observed in
this 2nd O-RAN plugfest. The Japan venue, co-hosted with KDDI and
SoftBank Corp., also saw growing participation and demonstration of new
capabilities. We will strengthen such joint activities, including to set
up Open Test and Integration Centre in Japan and to coordinate with
other regions across the globe, to further accelerate the development of
O-RAN multi-vendor ecosystem."
Hosted by Bharti Airtel, the
India plugfest was held at Gurgaon and Bengaluru locations.
Demonstrations showcased OFH multi-vendor interworking, O-DU system
validation, X2 interface and RIC use cases compliant with O1 and E2
interfaces for network performance optimization. 10 companies performed
the scenarios, including: Altiostar, Altran, ASOCS, Mavenir, NEC, STL,
VIAVI Solutions, VVDN and Xilinx.
“It is heartening to note that
the O-RAN ALLIANCE continues to build the momentum towards open RAN. The
successful plugfest this year is a testimony of a maturing ecosystem.
Airtel remains committed to build community of open RAN partners in
India, to scale our 4G network initiatives based on O-RAN and getting
ready for deployment of 5G networks,” said Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti
Airtel. “I would like to compliment O-RAN ALLIANCE, its Test and
Integration Focus Group, all hosts and participating companies for
putting up excellent demonstrations despite challenges of a global
Covid-19 pandemic.”
Europe
Deutsche Telekom, TIM,
Telefónica, Orange, and BT have teamed up together with the Telecom
Infra Project (TIP) to host the first Joint O-RAN & TIP plugfest at
the OTIC and TIP community labs in Berlin, Madrid and Torino. The
plugfest focused primarily on Open Fronthaul, associated transport
options, and multi-vendor interoperability.
In total 34 companies
took part at the European branch of the plugfest. With EANTC as the
system integrator, supported by engineers from highstreet technologies
and the hosting operators, there were: Altran, Astri, Baicells, Benetel,
Calnex, Ciena, Cisco, CommScope, Delta, EXFO, Foxconn, Fujitsu, JMA
Wireless, Juniper Networks, Keysight Technologies, Mavenir, MTI mobile,
ng4T, QCT, Radisys, Rohde&Schwarz, VIAVI Solutions, Wind River,
Wiwynn, WNC and Xilinx.
“The joint O-RAN and TIP Plugfest
demonstrates the power of community to accelerate the readiness of
multi-vendor O-RAN compliant network infrastructure. It was the first
time that operators across Europe joined forces to welcome ecosystem
partners and facilitate the verification, integration and testing of
their disaggregated RAN components,” said Alex Choi, COO of the O-RAN
ALLIANCE and SVP Technology Strategy & Technology Innovation,
Deutsche Telekom. “This coordinated European community effort represents
another step towards the realization of a robust ecosystem of
multi-vendor O-RAN compliant products.”
North America
The
joint O-RAN & O-RAN Software Community (OSC) Plugfest/PoC hosted by
AT&T and Verizon took place at the Platforms for Advanced Wireless
Research in New York City and in Salt Lake City. The primary focus was
to demonstrate the evolution of key O-RAN specifications in conjunction
with the enhancements and new capabilities being delivered by the O-RAN
Software Community “Bronze” release. 10 companies joined forces at the
North American plugfest, including Accelleran, Cisco, Ericsson,
highstreet technologies, Kumu Networks, Mavenir, Nokia and VMware.
O-RAN Plugfest Virtual Showcase
To
provide a more detailed and interactive view on the plugfest, O-RAN
ALLIANCE is preparing its Plugfest Virtual Showcase. Open to the general
public, the visitors will have a chance to see the O-RAN plugfest
environment, the test scenarios as well as the components that were
tested. The O-RAN Plugfest Virtual Showcase will soon become part of the
www.o-ran.org website.
About O-RAN ALLIANCE
The O-RAN
ALLIANCE is a world-wide community of more than 230 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 standards will enable a more competitive
and vibrant RAN supplier ecosystem with faster innovation to improve
user experience. O-RAN-compliant mobile networks will 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 .
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201015006071/en/
Contacts
O-RAN ALLIANCE PR Contact
Zbynek Dalecky
pr@o-ran.org
O-RAN ALLIANCE e.V.
Buschkauler Weg 27
53347 Alfter/Germany
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