EchoStar backed ORCID to Keep Open RAN Alive

In recent times, Open RAN has faced some backlash, but that does not mean the tech is dead nor the enthuathism around the technology. EchoStar Corporation, the company behind Boost Mobile, DISH TV, Hughes believes in Open RAN. The company has identified the flexibility of Open RAN is priceless. Then they brought their own playground for Open RAN players - ORCID. 

HQ at Englewood, Colo. (US), EchoStar Corporation, a global telecom and satellite service provider, has announced the launch of the Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID), a state-of-the-art Open RAN (O-RAN) testing and evaluation lab housed at EchoStar's Cheyenne, Wyoming, data center.

EchoStar Corporation (Nasdaq: SATS) is a premier provider of technology, networking services, television entertainment and connectivity, offering consumer, enterprise, operator, and government solutions worldwide under its EchoStar®, Boost Mobile®, Sling TV, DISH TV, Hughes®, HughesNet®, HughesON™, and JUPITER™ brands. In Europe, EchoStar operates under its EchoStar Mobile Limited subsidiary and in Australia, the company operates as EchoStar Global Australia. 

The facility, which is supported by a $50 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund (Innovation Fund), offers vendors the opportunity to test and validate their O-RAN based hardware and software solutions (RU, DU and CU) using EchoStar's live commercial-grade cloud-native Open RAN network. Note that in January, 2024 NTIA awarded DISH Wireless $50 million grant to establish ORCID. 

The launch of ORCID, which comes 6 months after NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson and Innovation Fund Director Amanda Toman announced the Innovation Fund grant at an EchoStar 5G site in Las Vegas, provides trusted participants in the U.S. and around the world an opportunity to contribute to the development, deployment, and adoption of open and interoperable standards-based radio access networks. ORCID's "living laboratory" features a real field test setup, which will help drive the O-RAN ecosystem from the lab to commercial deployment. 

EchoStar manages the ORCID consortium, which includes Fujitsu, Mavenir, VMware by Broadcom, and a variety of other technology partners - Analog Devices, ARM, Cisco, Dell Technologies, Intel, JMA Wireless, NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Samsung. EchoStar, with the help of its consortium partners, validated O-RAN technology at scale across the country, building an O-RAN 5G network that provides connectivity to more than 240 million Americans nationwide.

Charlie Ergen, co-founder and chairman, EchoStar said, "The Open RAN Center for Integration and Deployment (ORCID) is now open for business. We appreciate the trust and partnership of NTIA in this effort, which includes a historic $50 million grant from the Innovation Fund. ORCID represents a significant milestone in both EchoStar and the U.S.'s journey to drive and lead the adoption of open and interoperable radio access networks. We look forward to the groundbreaking advancements expected to emerge from this initiative."

"We encourage vendors interested in advancing the future of Open RAN technology to reach out and see how to participate in ORCID," said Ravinder Jarral, VP of 5G Wireless Partner Engagement and Delivery and head of the ORCID program, EchoStar. "By partnering with ORCID, vendors can achieve substantial cost savings, faster time-to-market, improved quality of service, and rigorous validation for their O-RAN solutions." 

Vendors interested in participating in ORCID may now submit applications using the ORCID web portal at https://www.orcid.us/home. 

Open-RAN India Update:

On July 22, 2024 Nokia announced has done over-the-air environment 5G NSA Cloud RAN trial successfully with Airtel's 3.5GHz spectrum for 5G and 2100MHz spectrum for 4G. During trial Airtel’s commercial network achieved a throughput of over 1.2 Gbps. The trial utilised Nokia’s RAN Software for virtualised Distributed Unit (vDU) and virtualised Centralised Unit (vCU) running on x86 Hardware with a CaaS layer. The trial also used Nokia’s L1 acceleration.

That means Indian TSPs are waiting for proper timing and best pricing to deploy Open RAN.