The Joint European O-RAN & TIP PlugFest Fall 2022 took place from October 24 to November 4, 2022, in the i14y Lab in Berlin, co-hosted by Deutsche Telekom, EANTC and Vodafone.
During the testing event, participating vendors got the opportunity to validate the market readiness of their individual solutions and to 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. This year’s testing focused on the following:
- O-RU conformance based on O-RAN and TIP test specifications and test plans
- Open FH transport testing/Xhaul testing, including PTP/SyncE
- Testing multi-vendor O-RAN-based E2E solution using O-RAN test plans
- Orchestration and management of RAN elements using SMO over O1 interface
- Evaluation of xApps in a standalone emulation scenario
- Evaluation of rApps in a standalone emulation scenario
- Demonstration and performance validation of O-Cloud infrastructure
In addition to the hosts, participants included solution providers Aarna Networks, Accelleran, Analog Devices, ADVA Optical Networking, Aspire Technology, Capgemini Engineering, Fujitsu, highstreet technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Juniper Networks, Mavenir Systems, NEC Europe, Net AI, Open Networking Foundation, Radisys, Red Hat, Rimedo Labs, and VMware. Furthermore, Anritsu, Calnex Solutions, Keysight Technologies, Rohde & Schwarz, Spirent, VIAVI Solutions, and VoerEir provided measurement equipment.
In this research project focusing on the evolution of Open RAN, EANTC contributes to developing automated test methods. We are conducting 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.
EANTC, as one of the work package leaders, aims to ensure continuous testing in a vendor-neutral environment. To achieve this, EANTC defines the test cases that reference or complement the O-RAN ALLIANCE and Telecom Infra Project test plans. 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 towards 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.
The virtual showcase will be publicly available in January at: https://plugfestvirtualshowcase.o-ran.org/.