The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) issued a Broad Agency Announcement to procure prototype or commercial-off-the-shelf Open RAN equipment and software as part of an effort to test state-of-the-art Open RAN technology.
ITS is seeking equipment used in Open RAN 4G and 5G networks, as well as Virtualized RAN (vRAN) software and RAN automation software. ITS will deploy the technology in its Communications Research and Innovation Network to evaluate performance, inter-vendor interoperability, and standard maturity compared with established RAN technologies.
The equipment requested are Open RAN prototype or COTS device types as follows:
- Radio Units (RU)
- Distributed Units (DU)
- Central Units (CU)
- Combination Units (DU/CU, RU/DU/CU, etc.) o Network Control Software
- RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) Software
“The development of open interfaces and vendor diversity are a significant part of NTIA’s overall vision for building out secure 5G networks,” said Acting NTIA Administrator Evelyn Remaley. “Today’s announcement is an important step for testing the ability of these technologies to interoperate and scale, and to achieve a more secure and resilient global 5G supply chain.”
