HFCL joins O-RAN Alliance to facilitate 5G gear development By CIOReviewIndia Team

HFCL joins O-RAN Alliance to facilitate 5G gear development

CIOReviewIndia Team | Monday, 21 February 2022, 12:06 IST

Homegrown telecom gear maker HFCL Monday said it has joined the O-RAN Alliance to drive innovation in the fifth-generation technology ecosystem.

As an O-RAN Alliance member, HFCL will work on contributing to standards that make sure a “true open and multi-vendor RAN network” with an emphasis on fronthaul, beamforming, Near-Real-Time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), Service Management & Orchestration (SMO), and end-to-end test specifications, the New Delhi-based firm said in a statement.

The statement added that HFCL will also focus on integration and validation of its 5G Macro RU products and solutions at plugfests with other members and contributors of the industry alliance.

“We are excited to be a part of the O-RAN Alliance and look forward to work with alliance members to realize the benefits of O-RAN,” said Mahendra Nahata, Managing Director at HFCL.

“Open networking based on a well-defined architecture and pre-validated solution will enable operators to have increased supplier diversity, accelerate innovation, reduce CAPEX/OPEX, and quick roll-out of 5G networks,” Nahata added.

The firm is also investing in a 5G lab at its Research & Development (R&D) center in Bangalore for the demonstration of various Open RAN use cases and deployment scenarios.

The O-RAN Alliance comprises telecom operators, telecom gear makers, and the academia which are working towards intelligent, open, virtualized and fully interoperable mobile networks.

These interoperable mobile networks, in essence, will enable telecom operators to mix-and-match network components to build-out 5G networks, and prevent vendor lock-ins.

The members of this global industry alliance consist of India’s Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, state-owned Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), as well as global companies like Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco, SoftBank, Altiostar, BT, T-Mobile, among others.