O-RAN plugfest for spring 2025 looked at automated cloud-native RAN deployment and testing, test automation enabled by LLMs, power savings and more
Nearly 70 companies participated in O-RAN Alliance’s spring plugfest this year, with testing that reflected a “steady evolution of the O-RAN ecosystem” and included leveraging artificial intelligence, per the Alliance.
The event this spring reflected the increasing complexity and maturity of the O-RAN ecosystem, as it delved into areas including network efficiency and energy savings, validation of transport network behavior under congestion and other impairments; and end-to-end network performance testing in multiple scenarios.
The O-RAN plugfest testing also included examination of test automation and reporting using artificial intelligence and Large Language Models; integration and testing of open-source O-RAN components; and progress toward achieving consistent and repeatable testing across labs and regions. O-RAN Alliance said that the O-RAN plugfest also demonstrated progress toward achieving RAN energy savings of 25-30% with the use of rApps on the Non-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller (Non-RT RIC).
The O-RAN plugfest event was hosted by 22 operators, Open Testing and Integration Centers (OTICs) and independent institutions around the world, taking place in eight venue and 19 labs between February through May of this year.
“Each plugfest showcases the steady evolution of the O-RAN ecosystem, highlighting progress across a wide range of technologies, solutions, and services that enhance RAN deployment and operations,” said Chih-Lin I, who is co-chair of O-RAN Alliance’s technical steering committee and China Mobile chief scientist, wireless technologies at the China Mobile Research Institute. “It’s particularly encouraging to see that the progress of O-RAN intelligence and automation capabilities has been gaining momentum.”
In other test news:
–Rohde & Schwarz and Viavi Solutions were among the participants of a 5G New Radio NTN demonstration that focused on mobile connectivity in remote locations.
Other participating organization included SKY Perfect JSAT (JSAT), TMY Technology (TMYTEK) and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).
The live demonstration at the World Expo 2025 Singapore Pavilion in Osaka, Japan, involved a 5G signal from user equipment located in Singapore, traversing a satellite antenna and then a geostationary—not a low Earth orbit or LEO—satellite operated by JSAT. The signal was then forwarded to a JSAT ground station and connected to a 5G base station and core network emulator. It was the first such transmission between those two countries, Rohde & Schwarz said, and the demonstration “successfully showed that an existing GEO satellite can reliably support the 5G NR standards.”
In additional news from R&S, the company is supporting a demonstration of Kyocera’s millimeter-wave phased array antenna module (PAAM) that creates multiple beams in different directions at different frequencies, simultaneously and can “enable a wide range of 5G FR2 infrastructure installations, including site co-location of different operators running networks on different frequency bands,” the test company said. That demo uses Rohde’s over-the-air characterization tools and will be happening at the upcoming IMS conference in San Francisco.
ICYMI: Ciena‘s WaveLogic Extreme coherent optical transceivers are supporting some of the fastest networking happening today. The company’s recent Vectors 2025 multi-week event brought many of Ciena’s customers to the lab in Ottawa to see the company’s latest innovations in-person. Read from on the lab and Ciena’s R&D work in this piece.
–Keysight Technologies announced some leadership changes this week. Gooi Soon Chai, SVP of order fulfillment and digital operations, is retiring after 40 years with the company across its various incarnations. Meanwhile, the company has named Ingrid Estrada, its SVP and chief people and administrative officer, to SVP of corporate infrastructure and operations. Estrada will lead Keysight’s order fulfillment, IT, indirect procurement and corporate services.
Additionally, the company promoted Assistant General Counsel Jodi Juskie to Estrada’s previous role as SVP and chief people officer.
“I’m thrilled to congratulate Ingrid and Jodi on their well-earned promotions. Ingrid’s operational depth and ability to drive transformational efforts have played a vital role in shaping our workforce and supply chain strategies over decades,” said Keysight President and CEO Satish Dhanasekaran. “Jodi brings a unique combination of legal, people, and business insight that will help evolve our people-first approach as we embark on the next phase of Keysight’s transformation.I also want to express my deep appreciation to Soon Chai, for four decades of remarkable contributions to HP, Agilent, and Keysight. I’ve always admired his passion for the business and his commitment to the future of the company.”
-The test space goes through occasional waves of consolidation. Looking across pending acquisitions and M&A activity in the test realm over the past couple of years is a useful exercise in identifying where companies see growth opportunities, what assets they think will be useful and how they stack up competitively against each other.
The last two years have involved some big deals, like Emerson acquiring NI; some deals that fell through, like SGS’ merger talks with Bureau Veritas; and several pending deals that will reshape the space, like Keysight Technologies and Viavi Solutions splitting Spirent Communications as well as the plan by Fortive to spin off test assets into a new company called Ralliant. Read about those transactions and more in this story.
