The O-RAN Alliance announced the fourth release of its open software featuring 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.
"With the joint efforts from the mobile carriers, traditional vendors, and more technology partners onboard, the 4th release is the first try to get the full O-RAN software stack working, and in addition we can now declare it is a smart RAN," said Chih-Lin I, the Co-chair of O-RAN Technical Steering Committee. "We are glad to see major accomplishments in the D release, and that our lab now delivers a reliable environment for the software community to continue new feature implementation and integration test verification."
Some further developments at the O-RAN Alliance:
- 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.
- On June 28, 2021, the O-RAN ALLIANCE approved three new Open Test and Integration Centers (OTICs):
- European OTIC in Madrid hosted by Telefonica
- European OTIC in Paris hosted by Orange
- Auray OTIC and Security Lab (Taiwan) hosted by Auray Technology
”Making the RAN intelligent and context-aware is critically important for network optimization and automation. The focus of Samsung's O-RAN SC contribution has been towards enhancing the A1-Enrichment Information (A1-EI) & xAPP Framework. Overall, we believe that strengthening the O-RAN AI/ML Framework will play a big role in making operators achieve proactive closed-loop optimization and automation of RAN operations," said Dr. Sunghyun Choi, Corporate SVP and Head of Advanced Communications Research Center of Samsung Research, Samsung Electronics.
