Airspan Networks plans to open a 5G Innovation Lab this month at its Slough, UK offices outside of London.
The company said it intends for the lab to serve multiple purposes: as a showcase and demonstration facility for partners, customers and government institutions, to focus on the development of Open RAN software, 5G sub 6 GHz and mmWave indoor and outdoor equipment, and private network use cases. The lab is expected to feature:
- A full, end-to-end 5G Open RAN solution provided by Airspan software (CU, DU, RIC) and hardware (RU), including mmWave and sub 6GHz radios, ready to connect to any other elements of a 5G network.
- Critical interoperability testing with the key elements of a 5G standalone network: 5G Core, other RAN vendors, devices, transport/PTP, COTS servers, cloud native platforms, orchestrators and xApps.
- Indoor over the air (OTA) RF testing using a recently awarded Ofcom license in sub 6 and a future license in mmWave. This includes massive MIMO and beamforming features.
- Validation of real use cases for public and private networks, to accelerate adoption of Open RAN and showcase its many benefits.
- Development, testing and validation of new features following 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance latest releases in a fully virtualized 5G network based on Open RAN architecture.
- Support for the UK government’s disruptive Supply Chain Diversification plan.