BONN, Germany – The O-RAN ALLIANCE welcomes 1&1 as its newest operator member, extending the world-wide community of 30 mobile network operators committed to deployment of open and intelligent Radio Access Networks (RAN).

The Third O-RAN Whitepaper Focuses on O-RAN Minimum Viable Plan and Acceleration towards Commercialization

Published on June 29, 2021, the whitepaper describes key areas to accelerate and enable the introduction of the rich capabilities of O-RAN Architecture in commercial networks. It also outlines a minimum viable set of end-to-end specifications for selected use cases to deploy a secure, multi-vendor interoperable network. The full whitepaper is available at our website.

O-RAN ALLIANCE Sets Cooperation with ETSI and TSDSI

To ensure compatibility and to avoid duplication of work, the O-RAN ALLIANCE's specification effort builds on common standards and values alignment with other industry bodies.

On May 27, 2021, the O-RAN ALLIANCE signed a cooperation agreement with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). O-RAN ALLIANCE shares with ETSI a common objective to perform and promote regional and international standardization for 3GPP based technologies.

The O-RAN ALLIANCE also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI). It expresses mutual interest in cooperation to grow open interfaces and the open RAN ecosystem in the India subcontinent region.

New Open Test and Integration Centers (OTIC)

On June 28, 2021, the O-RAN ALLIANCE approved three new OTICs:

The newly approved OTICs are widening the collaborative, open, and impartial working environment to ensure consistency and quality of testing of O-RAN products and solutions. See the full list of approved OTICs at our website.

New Standards Collaboration Copyright License (SCCL) to Simplify the Open Source Development

O-RAN ALLIANCE has introduced a new Standards Collaboration Copyright License (SCCL). The SCCL has been developed to simplify the process of producing open source SW based on standards, by defining a license that will make it easier for the open source community to use code-like sections of O-RAN specifications in their implementations.

"We believe that open source will play an important role in enabling open implementations, even if an operator never deploys stand-alone open source code in its network," said Alex Jinsung Choi, Chief Operating Officer of the O-RAN ALLIANCE and SVP of Strategy and Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom. "The open source can help suppliers build their commercial implementations, and perhaps most importantly, it can also make it easier to achieve cross-vendor integration and interoperability between open RAN components by providing a reference implementation."

The June 2021 O-RAN ALLIANCE Industry Summit Available for Replay

The O-RAN ALLIANCE Industry Summit on June 29 provided valuable insights on the latest O-RAN development, especially in terms of commercialization, security and performance. The 90-minute event is available for replay on demand at our website.

4th Release of Open Software for the RAN Developed by the O-RAN Software Community

The O-RAN Software Community (OSC or O-RAN SC) was formed in partnership with the Linux Foundation in April 2019, to support software development of open RAN solutions available to everyone.

The "D" release delivers major enhancements including support for closed-loop processing use cases, continued evolution of Non-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Control (Non-RT RIC) platform, new and enhanced xApps for the Near-Real-Time Radio Intelligent Controller (Near-RT RIC), as well as new performance monitoring and alarm support.

To deep-dive into the D release and to get the open software, please visit the O-RAN Software Community website.

O-RAN ALLIANCE