Open RAN is gaining traction in the U.K. with Vodafone trialing out disaggregated radio stacks in rural parts of its network and now, a government-back program is gearing up to focus on testing hardware/software interoperability and integration.
The SmartRAN Open Network Interoperability Center (SONIC) is a joint effort of Digital Catapult, a government innovation testbed organization, and telecoms regulator Ofcom. In its effort to explore the readiness and functionality, SONIC has onboarded industry partners, including Accelleran, Phludio, Effnet, Benetel, Mavenir, Foxconn, NEC and Radisys. Accelleran, Phludio, Effnet and Mavenir provide various virtualized RAN software solutions; Foxconn works on the hardware side; NEC and Radisys specialize in system integration.
