An Opportunity to Securely Advance into Software-driven Networks

The recently enacted Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act provides a unique opportunity for Communications Service Providers (CSPs) in rural America to modernize their networks. As the principles of Disaggregation and Software-driven Programmability come of age, the work done by various open-oriented industry bodies could be leveraged by this community for their benefit.

The telecom industry has been shifting to open and disaggregated software-centric networks to drive network transformation and thereby enable CSPs to keep up with subscriber demand for more and more bandwidth, while managing costs and accelerating new service introduction. As such, several industry organizations have emerged that are leading the charge to open:

 

• The O-RAN Alliance is driving disaggregation through the delivery of open reference architectures and standardized interfaces targeted at the Radio Access Network (RAN). 

 

• The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is focused on accelerating the pace of innovation for disaggregating and simplifying the network. The O-RAN Alliance and TIP recently announced that they are aligning on the development of interoperable open RAN solutions to further support interoperability and enable commercial deployment. 

 

• The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is enabling disaggregation for both the mobile RAN access and for broadband access. One of its new initiatives is the SDN Enabled Broadband Access (SEBA) initiative which enables broadband service providers to use mature open source software and white-box hardware.  

Founded more than 30 years ago in Hillsboro, Oregon, Radisys has a strong heritage of driving open standards for computing and communications networking. We are active participants in these three organizations, and we have taken a leadership role in several critical workgroups to deliver open reference architectures and specifications. This important work can be leveraged by rural CSPs as they upgrade their networks to ensure they are built with secure and trusted components that leverage software-based interoperability.

On our Open Radisys commitment, our CEO Arun Bhikshesvaran had this to say, “Radisys has been heavily investing in driving Open Network Transformation for the past several years and looks forward to playing an instrumental role in realizing this commitment for operators in rural America.”

Some of our key investments in Open Network Transformation include:

• Co-chair of the O-RAN Alliance Work Group 8 to define and develop the 5G New Radio Reference Architecture with contributions of our Open 5G Software® Seed Code to accelerate the O-RAN ecosystem and 5G network buildouts. 

 

• Key driver of the Open Test & Integration Center (OTIC) initiative to enable the industry to assemble, integrate and validate interoperable open RAN solutions sourced from a multi-vendor ecosystem. 

• Key contributor to ONF on the development of an open standards-based solution for broadband access through trials of Residential Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter (R-CORD). More recently, Radisys has been helping to enable the evolution of open source solutions by contributing to the development of the ONF SEBA initiative.

Today, Radisys’ software powers several open architecture-based network deployments around the world. We look forward to bringing this support to operators in rural America.