TIP OpenRAN Release 2 Roadmap Published along with Release Schedule
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) OpenRAN Project Group [1.] has just published its Release 2 Roadmap after conducting a thorough industry review with input from both the supply and the demand sides – including some of the world’s largest network operators. T-Mobile USA, Orange, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone were authors and contributors.
Note 1. TIP’s OpenRAN Project Group (OpenRAN PG) is focused on scaling up productization of Open RAN technology driven by an ecosystem of technology suppliers, including hardware and software vendors, along with system integrators and service providers. The overarching goal of the OpenRAN PG is to streamline the industry’s efforts on OpenRAN development and to accelerate OpenRAN adoption.
The OpenRAN PG activities include, but are not limited to:
- Gathering and consolidation of prioritized technology requirements for MNOs.
- Identification and engagement with vendors that will deliver the various hardware and software components for OpenRAN solutions that meet harmonized MNO requirements.
- Publishing an OpenRAN Release Definition document mapping the prioritized features to a roadmap of releases.
- Creation of the resulting harmonized OpenRAN Product Requirements documents and definition of Product Test Plans utilized in the Test & Validation framework within TIP.
- Definition of OpenRAN Product Blueprint documents and Blueprint Test Plans utilizing the Test and Validation framework within TIP.
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The Roadmap document provides a foundational framework for ecosystem alignment – harmonizing the prioritized network operator requirements, including the five European Open RAN MoU signatories, with vendor’s product readiness. You can read the full document here.
Last June, TIP published the ‘Open RAN Technical Priorities Document’ – a comprehensive list of technical requirements that the signatories of the Open RAN MoU Group (Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, TIM and Vodafone) considered priorities for Open RAN architecture. Building on that work, the TIP OpenRAN Project Group invited community participants to provide feedback, resulting in over 40 ecosystem responses.
The Roadmap release approach (shown below) enables the execution of the Project Group activities more efficiently, while also providing a path to commercialization via TIP’s Test and Validation framework, delivering on product requirements, blueprint definitions and associated test plans.
TIP Open RAN Roadmap Release Schedule:
The TIP OpenRAN Project Group will continue to advance the requirements gathering and road-mapping process with a regular cadence. As part of the framework, the requirement contribution window will open for MNOs for subsequent minor releases R2.1, R2.2, and so on. The requirements input from MNOs will be harmonized into requirements documents and assessed for compliance and readiness with the technology suppliers.
The TIP OpenRAN Project Group is focused on scaling up productization of OpenRAN technology driven by an ecosystem of technology suppliers, system integrators and service providers. The Project Group aims to streamline the industry’s efforts on OpenRAN development and accelerates OpenRAN adoption.
In addition to publishing the overall roadmap, TIP is also publishing Release 2 roadmaps and Technical Requirements Documents 2.0 for the RU, DU/CU, RIA and ROMA OpenRAN PG subgroups. These will form the basis for issuing ribbons and badges to vendor products – once they have progressed through TIP’s Test and Validation framework – with their subsequent listing on TIP Exchange.
References:
TIP OpenRAN project: New 5G Private Networks and ROMA subgroups
TIP OpenRAN and O-RAN Alliance liaison and collaboration for Open Radio Access Networks