5160IF017

Purpose: AT&T Corp and Verizon are proposing to strengthen the testing and evaluation ecosystem to accelerate incumbent, aka brownfield, operator evaluation, testing, and deployment of Open RAN systems by: 1.) increasing the availability and accessibility of testing and evaluation in the United States and how that will accelerate the development, deployment, and adoption of open, interoperable radio access networks; 2.) identifying new methods or to materially improve existing methods of testing, evaluating, and validating the interoperability, performance, and/or security of open, interoperable, and standards-based RAN elements, addressing needs not currently met by existing, industry-accepted tests and best practices; and 3.) supporting testing of the interoperability, performance, and/or security, of the radio unit (RU), central unit (CU), and/or distributed unit (DU) solutions of the 5G NR radio access network.

Activities to be performed: AT&T and Verizon will create a consortium of US mobile network operators (MNOs) with the mission of serving as the structure for a comprehensive program dedicated to the acceleration of compatibility and commercialization of Open RAN deployments (ACCORD) in the U.S. An Open RAN testing, evaluation, and R&D center within the Dallas Technology Corridor and a satellite location in the Washington, DC area will be created. T&E activities will focus on interoperability, performance, and security against industry-accepted test cases and best practices for 5G systems. The center will also facilitate research into new testing methods to enhance existing methods of testing, evaluation, and validating the evolving Open RAN ecosystem to support the accelerated adoption of Open RAN networks.

Expected outcomes: Ecosystem partners, vendors, suppliers, and US-based operators to increase T&E activities to accelerate the development, deployment, and adoption of Open RAN network, focusing on the challenges faced by incumbent operators.

Intended beneficiaries: Speeding the transition towards more open, modular networks will increase vendor diversity in the Open RAN ecosystem. In turn, these new innovations will directly benefit a broad range of customer types including consumers, enterprises, public safety and the government.

Subrecipient activities: The recipient proposes subawards to Verizon to provide mobile network operator project management that will fully integrate with AT&T PMO. Subawards to University of Texas at Dallas, Northeastern University, Iowa State University, Rutgers University, and Virginia Tech will provide principal investigators to integrate the lab resources from their respective institutions into the proposed federated lab as a service for Open RAN T&E activities.

AT&T

11.038 - Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund Grant Program – Expanding Testing and Evaluation

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) [DOC]

Oakton, Virginia 22124-2542 United States

Single Zip Code

None