Nokia has joined the Open RAN Policy Coalition, which was formed earlier this year to promote policies that will advance the adoption of open and interoperable solutions in the Radio Access Network (RAN) as a means to create innovation, spur competition and expand the supply chain for advanced wireless technologies including 5G.
Brian Hendricks, Vice President of Government Relations Americas, Nokia said: “Nokia believes that policymakers, operators and equipment providers should work together to support research and development of emerging network technologies that include open systems, advanced 5G technologies and foundational 6G research, with policies that support a robust ecosystem of trusted suppliers that will create a strong U.S. position in secure wireless technology. We believe this coalition strongly supports this approach and we are pleased to join and help the industry move forward on this important effort.”
Nokia notes that it was the first major vendor to join the O-RAN Alliance and it is co-chairing the workgroups that are defining the Open Fronthaul Interface and the Near Real-time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), which will help automate and optimize the network. In addition to the O-RAN Alliance, Nokia has championed open standards in 3GPP, the Linux Foundation’s ONAP initiative, ETSI’s Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) initiative, and more.
Open RAN Policy Coalition elects AT&T's Boyer as chairman
Chris Boyer of AT&T was elected to serve as the Coalition’s Chairman; Eric Wenger of Cisco will serve as Vice-Chair; Nick Fetchko of Verizon as Treasurer; and Becky Fraser of Qualcomm as Secretary.
At-large Board members elected include Thierry Maupile of Altiostar; Jeff Blum of DISH Network; Robert Pepper of Facebook, Jayne Stancavage of Intel; John Baker of Mavenir; David Jeppsen of NTT; Azita Arvani of Rakuten Mobile; and Ed Howard of Vodafone.
Open RAN Policy Coalition seeks to diversify supply chain
The coalition believes that the U.S. Federal Government has an important role to play in facilitating and fostering an open, diverse and secure supply chain for advanced wireless technologies, including 5G, such as by funding research and development, and testing open and interoperable networks and solutions, and incentivizing supply chain diversity.
As evidenced by the current global pandemic, vendor choice and flexibility in next-generation network deployments are necessary from a security and performance standpoint,” said Diane Rinaldo, Executive Director, Open RAN Policy Coalition. “By promoting policies that standardize and develop open interfaces, we can ensure interoperability and security across different players and potentially lower the barrier to entry for new innovators.”
