WASHINGTON – Seven contestants have been selected to participate in a $7 million research competition to promote more secure and interoperable wireless network equipment, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced today.

The 2023 5G Challenge, a collaboration between DoD and NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) in Boulder, Colo., aims to accelerate the adoption of open interfaces, interoperable subsystems, secure networks, and modular multi-vendor solutions toward the development of an open 5G ecosystem.

The contestants, selected from 23 white paper applications, will comprise two teams of two pairs. In each pairing, one contestant will provide the central unit and distributed unit (CU+DU) while a second contestant will provide the radio unit (RU).

Team 1

• Pairing 1: Mavenir Systems, Inc. (CU+DU); NewEdge Inc. (RU)
• Pairing 2: Radisys Corporation (CU+DU); LIONS Technology (RU)

Team 2

• Pairing 1: Capgemini Engineering (CU+DU); Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc. and AT&T (RU)
• Pairing 2: GXC, Inc. (CU+DU); GXC, Inc. (RU)

In the 2023 5G Challenge, NTIA/ITS will award a total prize purse of up to $7 million in cash and in-kind prizes to high-performing 5G subsystems that showcase multi-vendor interoperability across Radio Units (RU) and combined Central Units and Distributed Units (CU+DU).  The 2023 5G Challenge consists of multiple stages during which contestants are tasked with wrap-around emulation testing, end-to-end integration testing and mobility testing.

The contest is judged by a panel of experts. Prizes will be awarded to contestants that have the best performance across a standard corpus of metrics as assessed by the host lab.

ITS, the Nation’s Spectrum and Communications Lab, supports the Department of Defense 5G Initiative through a combination of its subject matter experts in 5G and its research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) laboratory infrastructure in Boulder, Colorado, including the Advanced Communications Test Site at the Table Mountain Radio Quiet Zone.