The O-RAN Global PlugFest Spring 2023  was conducted from April to June 2 in ten labs across Asia, Europe and North America, with 60 participating companies or institutions (see press release)  The tests provided participants validation of O-RAN equipment conformance, performance and interoperability; tackled issues and overcome hurdles to wider technology adoption; and facilitated exploration of new features, scenarios and applications.

The O-RAN ALLIANCE is a world-wide community of more than 300 mobile operators, vendors, and research & academic institutions operating in the Radio Access Network (RAN) industry. As the RAN is an essential part of any mobile network, the O-RAN ALLIANCE’s mission is to re-shape the industry towards more intelligent, open, virtualized and fully interoperable mobile networks. The new O-RAN specifications enable a more competitive and vibrant RAN supplier ecosystem with faster innovation to improve user experience.

COSMOS is one of two North American Open Testing and Integration Centres (OTICs) as announced in Jan. 2023 and as such hosted part of the Plugfest in North America.  

Specifically, in the USA, the PlugFest was jointly hosted by University of New Hampshire, COSMOS, CableLabs and POWDER in partnership with AT&T and DISH Network, across 4 labs: University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab, North American OTIC in NYC Metro Area/East (COSMOS), CableLabs Kyrio O-RAN Test and Integration Lab, and POWDER. Participants included: Analog Devices, Calnex Solutions, Capgemini Engineering, EXFO, Fujitsu, highstreet technologies, IP Infusion, National Instruments, Red Hat, Spirent Communications, VIAVI Solutions, Wind River and Xena Networks. More details about the experiments conducted in COSMOS are available in the PlugFest page.

“The sheer scale of participation in O-RAN PlugFests is testament t  support and momentum of deployment,” said Alex Jinsung Choi, Chair of the Board of O-RAN ALLIANCE and SVP Group Technology, Deutsche Telekom. “In the Spring 2023 PlugFest, we expanded the ecosystem by testing products from new vendors. Participants validated the security of end-to-end O-RAN architecture and demonstrated the power of the RIC to support critical use cases such as quality of service and energy efficiency.”