Ericsson has joined the O-RAN Alliance, a group of leading telecom service providers and suppliers with the commitment to evolving radio access network (RAN) architecture and orchestration built on openness, intelligence, flexibility and performance.
As a member, the company will focus on the open interworking between RAN and network orchestration and automation, with emphasis on AI-enabled closed-loop automation and end-to-end optimization, to lower operating cost and improve end-user performance.
Ericsson will also focus on the upper-layer function as specified in 3GPP to provide interoperable multivendor profiles for specified interfaces between central RAN functions, resulting in faster deployment of 5G networks on a global scale.
Erik Ekudden, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Ericsson, says “Ericsson is a strong supporter of openness in the industry, and the benefits this has on global ecosystems and innovations. Our ambition is to actively support and drive discussions and developments around future RAN architectures and open interfaces. The O-RAN Alliance is an important coalition that creates an arena for these discussions, complementing other standardization and open-source initiatives in the industry which we are already active in.”
The company’s engagement with the O-RAN Alliance is based on the future needs of mobile network service providers, and how networks must evolve to enable broad range of services with strong focus on quality, performance and security.
The O-RAN Alliance was formally formed at Mobile World Congress Shanghai on June 27, 2018 as a network operator-led effort to drive openness and intelligence in the RAN of next-generation wireless systems.
