Orange announced the official opening of its first research lab in France entirely dedicated to the development of Open RAN (Radio Access Network) standards. Located at The Orange Gardens site in Chatillon outside Paris, the new integration centre is available to partners worldwide, also providing access to facilities remotely. Orange executive Michael Trabbia said that the launch fits into the group’s ambition to deploy exclusively Open RAN equipment across Europe from 2025 onwards.
Orange partners will use the facilities for testing and integration projects, working towards the long-term objective of consolidating the Open RAN ecosystem to build networks capable of working with hardware and software from different suppliers. The group of companies that will use the site include Amphenol, AW2S/SERMA, Benetel, Cellwize, Dell, Intel, Keysight, Nokia, Samsung, and Viavi.
Samsung said that its virtualized RAN (vRAN) and Massive MIMO radio equipment will be part of the trials to be carried at the centre in collaboration with Orange. The Korean group has already conducted vRAN commercial deployments with tier-one operators in North America, Europe and Asia.
The Open RAN lab has been awarded the OTIC (Open Testing and Integration Centre) label by the O-RAN Alliance, of which Orange is a founding member. It will be the fourth of its kind in Europe, where the telecom group is actively supporting Open RAN implementation for the 5G era alongside Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone.
