Sprint and Vodafone will head up a new project group launched by the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), with an initial focus on developing sub-6 GHz small cells for indoor and outdoor use cases.
The project group, dubbed Open RAN 5G NR, also has input from other industry players including Qualcomm, Intel, Airspan, Arm, Airspan and Aricent, TechMahindra, and Parallel Wireless.
Announced at MWC 2019 in Barcelona, the initiative plans to follow the sub-6 GHz work with millimeter wave 5G NR small cells. The Open RAN 5G NR group will also leverage input from operators to create modeling techniques and testing frameworks for particular applications and deployment approaches based on both standalone and non-standalone 5G NR architectures.
One project goal is to build an open reference design using general purpose hardware, which TIP says will allow operators to choose the optimal hardware combined with open source software for “a flexible modular 5G NR platform.”
“Industry collaboration is a model that works,” said Ron Marquardt, VP of Technology Innovation at Sprint, in a statement. “With a vibrant community, the model streamlines processes and delivers a high volume of contributions, all leading to rapid innovation. We’re excited to co-chair this effort and help lead the development of sub-6 GHz 5G NR small cells based on open reference designs.”
The industry has been collaborating on creating a more open network infrastructure through a number of other initiatives, including the O-RAN Alliance, which Samsung joined last week.
TIP’s new project group said it will coordinate with organizations like the O-RAN Alliance, as well as 3GPP and others.