O-RAN ALLIANCE welcomes 4iG as its 32nd operator member. O-RAN ‘s members currently include more than 330 companies and institutions from around the world, working together to develop the open RAN ecosystem.
O-RAN ALLIANCE leadership elected for 2022-2024 term
On October 24, 2022, the General Assembly of the O-RAN ALLIANCE completed the election of the Alliance Board of Directors for the upcoming 2022-2024 term. The election took place in accordance with the O-RAN ALLIANCE constitution , which sets out clear rules for the work of the alliance in line with WTO criteria. The Board of Directors remains unchanged from the previous term, with a full composition of 15 leading mobile network operators.
Dr Alex Jinsung Choi, SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom, has been elected as the new CEO. dr Choi previously served as COO since the formation of O-RAN ALLIANCE in 2018. As chairman, he succeeds Andre Fuetsch, who served as chairman from 2018 until he left AT&T in August 2022.
“The recently elected leadership of the O-RAN ALLIANCE remains committed to O-RAN’s mission to transform Radio Access Networks towards an open, intelligent, virtualized and fully interoperable RAN,” said Dr. Alex Jinsung Choi, Chairman of O-RAN ALLIANCE and SVP Group Technology, Deutsche Telekom. “Building on the foundation of specifications, open software development, and testing and integration efforts, O-RAN will continue to explore ways to nurture the open RAN ecosystem to make rapid strides towards commercial deployment.”
Stefan Engel-Flechsig has been appointed COO of O-RAN ALLIANCE by the Board of Directors. Stefan Engel-Flechsig has a long professional career in the mobile industry and has supported O-RAN as legal advisor since the association was founded.
“Since its inception, the O-RAN ALLIANCE has been an open and transparent technical organization that both established and emerging industrial companies and academic institutions can join and contribute to their efforts,” said Stefan Engel-Flechsig, COO of the O-RAN ALLIANCE. “Based on the principle of consensus, the O-RAN ALLIANCE is well positioned in the global wireless industry to fulfill its mission.”
Face-to-face conferences promote the progress of O-RAN technical groups
In October 2022, after 3 years, the O-RAN ALLIANCE successfully resumed the face-to-face conferences of its working and focus groups with more than 500 participants from 148 companies from all over the world. In-person conferences significantly advance the progress of the O-RAN effort.
In 2023, O-RAN plans to hold three face-to-face conferences of its members in different regions. The meetings will be prepared taking into account current health and travel regulations and will allow remote participation for delegates who are unable to travel.
53 O-RAN technical documents published since July 2022
The O-RAN ALLIANCE Working Groups and Focus Groups recently published 53 new technical documents that complete Release 002. It includes two new specification titles:
A1 Interface: Use Cases and Requirements – The first dedicated A1 interface specification with Level 2 flowchart
The specification for a new E2 Service Model (E2SM), configuration and control of cells – for the configuration and control of resources at the cell and slice level for the network slicing use case.
Further alignment of O-RAN ALLIANCE with the Telecom Infrastructure Project (TIP)
On October 25, 2022, at the Open RAN Summit at Fyuz in Madrid, O-RAN and TIP announced a further alignment of their value propositions and services to seamlessly complement each other.
O-RAN and TIP regularly align to ensure the O-RAN MVP feature packs and release roadmaps are synchronized with the TIP blueprints. TIP refers to O-RAN’s technical and test specifications, and TIP members help improve them as part of the change request process. O-RAN and TIP mutually recognize testing results conducted at O-RAN approved Open Testing and Integration Centers (OTIC) and TIP Community Labs.
The alignment between O-RAN and TIP allows the ecosystem to streamline the development of O-RAN-based products, validate interfaces and component interoperability, and demonstrate the functionality and operational performance of the commercially available open RAN solutions.
