The US Department of Defense (DoD), in collaboration with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS), has launched the 5G Challenge Preliminary Event: RAN Subsystem Interoperability.
This competition aims to accelerate the development and adoption of open interfaces, interoperable components, and multi-vendor solutions toward the development of an open 5G ecosystem.
“The Department is committed to supporting innovation efforts that accelerate the domestic development of 5G and Future G technologies. 5G is too critical a technology sector to relinquish to countries whose products and technologies are not aligned with our standards of privacy and security.
We will continue our support of all necessary efforts to unleash innovation while developing secure 5G supply chains,” said Amanda Toman, Acting Principal Director, 5G-Future G.
Today, most wireless networks are operated by mobile network operators and composed of many vendor-specific proprietary solutions. Each discrete element typically contains custom, closed-source software and hardware. This industry dynamic increases costs, slows innovation, and reduces competition, often making security issues difficult to detect and resolve.
The 5G Challenge aims to foster a large, vibrant, and diverse vendor community dedicated to advancing 5G interoperability towards true plug-and-play operation, and unleashing a new era of technological innovation based on this critical technology.
This 5G Challenge Preliminary Event: RAN Subsystem Interoperability will award up to $3,000,000 to participants who submit hardware and/or software solutions for any or all of the following 5G network subsystems, which must be compliant with the 3GPP Release 15 Standard and O-RAN Alliance Specifications: Distributed Unit (DU), Central Unit (CU), and Radio Unit (RU). Interoperability is open for applications through May 5, 2022.
Applications and additional information on this 2022 contest can be found here.
