Kyocera has announced that it will establish the O-RU Alliance on 3rd March in collaboration with six telecommunications companies: Alpha Networks; HFR; Microelectronics Technology; SOLiD; VVDN Technologies; and Wistrn NeWeb Corporation (WNC).
Working with these alliance members, Kyocera will open its central unit/distributed unit platforms to promote the adoption of interoperable and flexible radio networks (Open RAN).
Existing 5G wireless networks are composed of central units (CUs), distributed units (DUs) and radio units (RUs), installed either independently or partially interated. Since the interfaces connecting these components are not publicly available, only devices from the same supplier or those with compatible interfaces are able to connect to the infrastructure.
Procuring CU/DU/RU equipment from a single supplier may offer network operators certain benefits, but it also limits system configuration freedom due to supplier proprietary specifications and performance constraints.
The O-RAN Alliance plans to address this limitation in response to demand for 5G RANs that enable interconnection between devices from different suppliers, which requires extensive collaboration between suppliers and telecom operators.
The O-RU Alliance established by Kyocera aims to create an ecosystem where companies from different regions and nations can collaborate to build more flexible wireless networks. By providing O-RAN compliant CU/DU/RU system solutions to telecom operators, the Alliance aims to promote Open RAN adoption. This initiative will not only facilitate 5G base station market entry for more suppliers, but will also invigorate the telecommunications infrastructure market.
The Alliance’s initiatives are interoperability testing where Kyocera will provide O-RAN compliant CUs and DUs; providing baseband components whereby Kyocera will disclose a reference design for the O-RAN interface processing unit to alliance members; and member introduction, where the member suppliers will be introduced to telecom operators.
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