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EANTC co-hosted O-RAN Global PlugFest Spring 2023 at i14y Lab

The O-RAN ALLIANCE Global PlugFest Spring 2023, took place from April 17 - May 12, 2023, in the i14y Lab in Berlin, co-hosted by Deutsche Telekom and EANTC, and supported by Orange.

Participants included the solution providers Altran/Capgemini, Benetel, IS Wireless, Net AI, Nokia, Radisys, RIMEDO Labs, and VMware. Rohde & Schwarz and VIAVI Solutions provided measurement equipment.

During the testing event, participating vendors got the opportunity to validate their individual solutions' market readiness and explore multi-vendor interoperability. The tests were based on O-RAN and TIP test specifications. Furthermore, technical priorities provided by the Open RAN MoU Group of European service providers were considered. To ensure the functioning of Open RAN networks, the following scenarios were put to the test focusing on the following:

• Testing of multi-vendor O-RAN ALLIANCE-based end-to-end solutions including products and solutions aligned with TIP requirements documents
• Evaluation of Near-RT RIC xApps in standalone emulation scenarios
• Demonstration/Evaluation of Non-RT RIC rApps in standalone emulation scenarios
• SMO north-bound management plane testing
• Demonstration of RICs implementing the O-RAN specified A1/E2 Interfaces
• Verification of O-RAN based O-RU, O-DU/ O-CU implementations for Open Fronthaul functions and Performance

Together with Deutsche Telekom, EANTC co-hosted the PlugFest at the i14y Lab. The PlugFest is one of the cornerstones in the i14y research project (2021-2024) focusing on the evolution of Open RAN.

What has been achieved during four intensive weeks of testing?

• Three end-to-end scenarios successfully evaluated for functional and performance
• Initial evaluation of four xApps/rApps with three non-RT/near-RT RICs: Traffic steering, KPM subscription and energy saving
• One O-RU conformance scenario successfully tested against M-plane, CU Plane and 3Gpp selected tests
• Support from two test tool vendors: many scenarios tested with nine DUT vendors

EANTC contributes to developing automated test methods and conducts joint interoperability tests together with strong project partners aligned with the European and global testing initiatives of the O-RAN ALLIANCE and Telecom Infra Project. As one of the work package leaders, EANTC aims to ensure continuous testing in a vendor-neutral environment. The goal of EANTC is to automate as many of these test cases as feasible. This way, solution interoperability will be tested efficiently and accurately in a minimum amount of time, closing the gap toward production readiness of Open RAN technology.

EANTC proudly contributes to the essential joint Open Lab initiative to accelerate Open RAN deployments, build a truly open ecosystem, and lower market entry and participation barriers.