The O-RAN Alliance also announced the launch of its Certification and Badging program
O-RAN Alliance announced it has formed its next Generations Research Group (nGRG), with the aim of carrying out research about O-RAN and future 6G networks, the entity said in a release.
“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 the O-RAN Technical Steering Committee and chief scientist for wireless technologies at the 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.”
The O-RAN Alliance also announced the launch of its certification and badging program. The entity noted that O-RAN certificates state that an equipment or function conforms 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 Open Testing and Integration Centers, or OTICs.
The O-RAN alliance said that OTICs provide collaborative, open, and impartial working environment to ensure consistency and quality of testing of O-RAN products and solutions.
The O-RAN Alliance highlighted that it has just approved the 7th OTIC and first one in Americas, the Kyrio O-RAN Test and Integration Lab hosted by CableLabs.
In April, the O-RAN Alliance released its second wave of specifications for open radio access network (RAN) architecture.
The O-RAN Alliance noted that the new O-RAN Release 002 focuses on enabling Open Intelligence. Features in the new release include specifications for traffic steering, quality of service and quality of experience optimization, RAN slicing, and service management and orchestration.
The entity also said it has updated 36 technical documents with extensions and new features since November 2021.
In 2021, O-RAN Alliance had introduced a new initiative describing how its specifications combine to form the first Release of O-RAN Minimum Viable Plan. This plan delivers the specifications needed by the open RAN ecosystem to create products that meet the highest priority needs of operators.
O-RAN Release 001 focused on creating open interfaces that include open fronthaul, transport, hardware and cloud.
The O-RAN Alliance is a global community of more than 340 mobile operators, vendors, and research & academic institutions operating in the Radio Access Network (RAN) industry. The O-RAN Alliance’s mission is to re-shape the industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualized and fully interoperable mobile networks. O-RAN Alliance publishes new RAN specifications, releases open software for the RAN, and supports its members in integration and testing of their implementations.
