VIAVI provides Benchmarking and Validation for Global O-RAN PlugFest

O-RAN PlugFest organized by the O-RAN ALLIANCE and hosted by industry leaders. The PlugFest involved a series of on-site demonstrations across multiple countries.

Viavi Solutions, global provider of network test, monitoring and assurance solutions for communications service providers, hyperscalers, equipment manufacturers, enterprises, government and avionics, today shared the company’s role in the Fall 2022 O-RAN PlugFest organized by the O-RAN ALLIANCE and hosted by industry leaders. The PlugFest involved a series of on-site demonstrations across multiple countries.

VIAVI provided benchmarking and validation for PlugFest tests and demonstrations at the following sites:

·         University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory in Durham, New Hampshire, USA

·         TIP Community Lab hosted by Meta in Menlo Park, California, USA

·         Kyrio OTIC Lab hosted by CableLabs in Louisville, Colorado, USA

·         i14y Lab hosted by Deutsche Telekom in Berlin, Germany

·         Orange SA in Paris, France

·         EURECOM in Biot, France

·         TIM Innovation Lab in Torino, Italy

·         Yokosuka Research Park hosted by NTT DOCOMO and Rakuten Mobile in Yokosuka City, Japan.

Dr. Ian Wong, CTO Office, VIAVI and Co-Chair, Testing and Integration Focus Group, O-RAN ALLIANCE said,“The Fall 2022 O-RAN PlugFest followed a remarkable period in which more industry organizations aligned with the O-RAN ALLIANCE, driving adoption even more globally, an increasing number of major vendors are advancing the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), with Nokia being a notable participant in the PlugFest. ETSI adopted its first O-RAN specification, ‘O-RAN Fronthaul Control, User and Synchronization Plane Specification v7.02.’ And the Telecom Infra Project and O-RAN ALLIANCE committed to renewed alignment at FYUZ 2022. Growing acceptance of O-RAN specifications was evident in the strong collaboration, robust test cases and effective completion of activities during the PlugFest.”

According to VIAVI, its Test Suite for O-RAN Specifications supported conformance, performance, interoperability, and end-to-end testing:

• RIC – VIAVI demonstrated near real-time RIC platform conformance test and xApp performance benchmarking with RIC and xApps supplied by:

-        Nokia near real-time RIC, and conformance of E2SM-KPM and E2SM-RC functions

-        TIM near real-time RIC, QoS xApp, Traffic Steering xApp

-        Capgemini Engineering RIC, Traffic Steering and QoS xApps

-        HCLTech Traffic Steering and Predictive Load Balancing xApp

-        NEC RIC, HCLTech Bouncer xApp

The VIAVI TeraVM RIC Test emulates E2 Nodes generating E2 procedures to test RIC compliance as well as Traffic scenarios to train and test the xApp functionality and decision making.

• Multivendor end-to-end (E2E) interoperability – The VIAVI TM500 UE Emulator and TeraVM Core Emulator were used for E2E testing of multiple vendor combinations, including:

-        Capgemini Engineering O-DU and O-CU connected to Aarna Networks AMCOP O-RAN Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) via O1, which is the first ever test of SMO and O1 interface using the TIP OpenRAN Orchestration and Management Automation (ROMA) test plan, furthering alignment between TIP and the O-RAN ALLIANCE

-        Rakuten Mobile O-DU and O-CU with NEC O-RU using VIAVI E500 for security testing

-        Sunwave O-RU, Radisys O-DU and O-CU, Calnex FrontHaul impairment emulator, Xena Networks Fronthaul impairment emulator, and Lumentum TSFP+

-        Node-H O-RU and O-DU, and Accelleran O-CU

-        Radisys O-DU and O-CU with another vendor’s O-RU

-        Capgemini Engineering O-DU and O-CU with another vendor’s O-RU

-        VVDN O-RU, OpenAirInterface (OAI) O-DU/O-CU/Core Network using TMLite running on 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ CPU-powered servers

• O-RU – VIAVI and Rohde & Schwarz partnered on conformance and performance testing of a Fujitsu O-RU, Analog Devices’ ADRV904x-RD-RUMB 8T8R O-RU reference design and development kit, and an MTI O-RU. The combined testbed includes the VIAVI TM500 O-RU Tester and the Rohde & Schwarz SMW200A or SMM100A Vector Signal Generator (VSG), FSV3000 or FSVA3000 Signal and Spectrum Analyzer and Vector Signal Explorer (VSE) software, with the O-RU Test Manager providing a seamless user experience. Separately, the VIAVI TM500 O-RU Tester and TMLite were used for Direct Performance Testing (DPT) of the Fujitsu 32TRX mMIMO O-RU.

• O-CU – VIAVI and Capgemini Engineering partnered on interface (Xn and F1-C) and handover testing of a Capgemini Engineering O-CU. The VIAVI TeraVM O-CU Tester emulated the O-DU.

Stephen Hire, Vice President of Wireless Marketing said,“Once again, VIAVI is proud to have been able to support both standardization activities and PlugFest testing spanning each of the different subsystems as well as end-to-end interoperability and security testing,”  VIAVI. “We are strongly committed to helping the industry to be successful in commercializing O-RAN technology and delivering the benefits that network operators demand.”