Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 18: Minister of State (MoS) for Communications, Devusinh Chauhan, launched the C-DOT O-RAN testbed on World Telecom Day, here today.
Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), the Telecom R&D Centre of the Government of India, under the guidance of Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is setting up an O-RAN testbed with various dedicated indoor and outdoor Open RAN test labs at its Delhi and Bengaluru campuses.
These labs will greatly benefit the stakeholders of local Telecom ecosystem including R&D, academia, industry and startups by offering them a one-stop destination for carrying out the functional, conformance and interoperability testing of Open RAN-based subsystems in an extensive manner. It shall also facilitate the certification and badging of subsystems that conform to 3GPP and O-RAN alliance specifications.
The setting-up of this testbed will spur the indigenous design and development of world-class O-RAN based solutions that can be thoroughly tested for diverse deployment scenarios. This will also create new avenues for exports of home-grown technologies. This further manifests India’s R&D prowess in Telecom sector and will enhance socio-economic growth of the country.
The geographical location of testbed in the technology hubs of Delhi and Bengaluru will also be a huge strategic advantage for both Indian and South Asian companies who are keen on developing O-RAN based 5G solutions in an expeditious manner.
Open RAN is an ideal solution to reduce vendor lock-in and total cost of ownership. It will also promote higher flexibility and intelligence in RAN system. Typically, radio networks are supplied by single OEMs and lead to dependence on that vendor. Open RAN refers to disaggregating the radio access networks into modular network functions that support open, standardized interfaces between them.
The establishment of an advanced O-RAN testbed facility by C-DOT will prove to be a concrete step in the direction of achieving ‘Atmanirbharta’ (self-reliance) in Telecom sector.