Mobile industry leaders to develop O-RAN fronthaul-compliant products and drive multi-vendor radio access networks —Commercial launch expected from 2019 onwards— (PDF)

TOKYO, JAPAN, February 22, 2019—NTT DOCOMO, INC., AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, KDDI Corporation, KT Corporation, Orange, SK Telecom, SoftBank Corp., Telefónica, TIM, Verizon Communications Inc., Cisco, Fujitsu Limited., HFR Networks, Inc., Intel Corporation, Keysight Technologies, Inc., Mavenir, NEC Corporation, Nokia, Pivotal Commware, Radisys® Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., SOLiD and VIAVI jointly announced today that they will adopt the fronthaul specifications of the Open Radio Access Network Alliance (O-RAN).

The operators plan to test or introduce O-RAN-compliant products in commercial 5G networks from this year onwards. The vendors have started developing O-RAN-compliant products, and have either started or plan to conduct multi-vendor interoperability testing.

The O-RAN fronthaul specification provides a foundation for interoperability between baseband units and radio units for RAN manufactured by diverse partners. Product interoperability offers benefits including expanded opportunities to use optimal commercial and technical baseband units and radio units depending on the deployment scenario and the required timing.

The companies believe that a global eco-system around multi-vendor RAN using the O-RAN fronthaul specification will help to advance innovation in radio access networks for the 5G era, and meet the needs of ever-increasing data traffic as well as diverse vertical markets and service requirements.