O-RAN ALLIANCE Advances Testing and Integration with Successful O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2022

o-ran plugfest logo

BONN, Germany--The O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2022 was successfully completed in 6 venues across Asia, Europe, and North America, with 106 participating companies. 

O-RAN ALLIANCE global PlugFests represent a major platform enabling efficient progress of the O-RAN ecosystem through well-organized testing and integration. O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2022 is the second O-RAN PlugFest this year. In combination with the Spring PlugFest, the 2022 O-RAN Global PlugFests span across 9 venues with 156 participants, of which many participated at more than one venue.

“Testing and integration at O-RAN PlugFests show increasing maturity of O-RAN technology in all regions,” said Linsheng Liao, O-RAN TIFG Co-chair and Senior Project Manager of CMRI. “Comparing the PlugFest results year to year, we are pleased to see major progress made by the O-RAN ecosystem in conformance and interoperability tests, as well as more advanced end-to-end and network automation scenarios. O-RAN PlugFests greatly contribute to developing commercially available O-RAN networks.”

O-RAN Global PlugFest Fall 2022 in Asia

PlugFest in Japan, hosted by NTT DOCOMO, KDDI, Rakuten Mobile, SoftBank, YRP and YRP R&D Promotion Committee took place at multiple sites in large metropolitan area. Activities focused on:

  • Lab tests and field trials of latency assurance with Near-RT RIC for E2E network slicing
  • Conformance, IOT, E2E testing, including Open Fronthaul and security verification
  • Field tests of mmW backhaul system using O-RAN Fronthaul
  • Multi-vendor vRAN integration
  • Near-RT RIC demo with xApp and E2 nodes
  • Open source demo realizing vRAN application deployment with OpenStack Tacker

In addition to the hosts, participants included AMD AECG, Anritsu, ComWorth, Dell Technologies, DKK, DZS, Fujitsu, HCL, Keysight Technologies, KYOCERA, NEC, NVIDIA, Red Hat, Spirent, TOYO, VIAVI Solutions and Wind River.

PlugFest in South Korea hosted by SK Telecom focused on:

  • Open Fronthaul interface conformance testing for O-DU and O-RU
  • O-RAN specified interoperability testing between O-DU and O-RU
  • Evaluation of O-RAN based private 5G systems through O-RAN specified E2E tests
  • Performance and functional testing in live indoor environments

In addition to the hosts, participants included ETRI, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HFR, Intel and Keysight Technologies.

PocFest in North America hosted by UNH-IOL, hosted by AT&T and DISH, took place in four labs:

  • University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab
  • TIP Community Lab at Meta, Menlo Park CA
  • POWDER Lab and NSF PAWR SITE with the University of Utah
  • COSMOS Lab and NSF PAWR SITE with the Rutgers University, Columbia University, NYU Wireless

Activities focused on testing of conformance and performance of O-RU devices, measurements of energy saving and efficiency, integration of AI/ML for resource pooling and slicing, testing of RIC, xApps, SMO, and end-to-end interoperability testing.

In addition to the hosts, participants included AMD, Anritsu, Calnex, DZS, Fujitsu, HCL, Intel, Keysight Technologies, NEC, Radisys, Rohde & Schwarz, VIAVI Solutions, VVDN, VMware, Vodafone, Wind River and Xena.