Industrial Automation Magazine India

VIAVI participates in O-RAN Plugfest

Published on : Friday 30-10-2020

The plugfest was conducted across five countries with 4G and 5G Lab and Field Test Platforms.

Bangalore, October 29, 2020 – Viavi Solutions has successfully participated in a global O-RAN plugfest hosted by several Tier-1 communications service providers (CSPs) and the O-RAN ALLIANCE. The plugfest involved a series of on-site demonstrations in multiple countries. VIAVI provided industry-leading 4G and 5G test and validation platforms to support the worldwide event, which demonstrated key Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) use cases involving a number of network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) and system integrators, accelerating the commercialisation of O-RAN and diversification of the RAN supply chain.

In a multi-vendor based O-RAN environment, ensuring interoperability will become the network operator’s principal concern. The VIAVI Test Suite for O-RAN Specifications offers comprehensive, integrated solutions to validate that all interfaces are working correctly – including RF, signalling and interoperability, timing and synchronisation – and equipment is performing to specifications even under load and stress. In the lab, the TM500 and TeraVM families deliver UE, O-RAN subsystem and core network simulation to enable conformance, interoperability and performance testing of both complete base station and core network testing as well as wraparound testing of individual O-RAN subsystems and core network elements. In both the lab and the field, T-BERD/MTS-5800 validates critical synchronisation parameters with necessary precision using its Timing Extension Module (TEM), delivering a highly stable reference signal for synchronising test equipment and O-RAN components. CellAdvisor 5G characterises and analyses 4G and 5G RF signals. ONT-800 tests transport network performance up to 800G.

VIAVI supported the following plugfests: Berlin, Germany; Torino, Italy; Madrid, Spain; Bengaluru, India; and Tokyo, Japan.

“As a champion of interoperability test methodologies, and the first company to introduce a comprehensive test suite for O-RAN specifications, VIAVI has worked closely with ecosystem partners and operators worldwide to help identify, isolate and resolve performance issues with disaggregated networks,” said Sameh Yamany, Chief Technology Officer, VIAVI. “The successful results of the global O-RAN ALLIANCE plugfest represent a significant step forward in the advancement of multi-vendor O-RAN environments, which are essential to scaling and sustaining 5G networks.”