Viavi is the first test equipment provide to join OSA’s board

Viavi Solutions announced it has joined the strategic board of the OpenAirInterface Software Alliance (OSA).

With this new addition, the OSA will now have a test equipment provider on its board.

The OpenAirInterface (OAI), known for its efforts in open-source software for 4G and 5G networks, has recently made a significant contribution in the path towards multivendor O-RAN solutions by providing its O-CU and O-DU software for interoperability with the O-RUs from the industrial partners. This role is expected to significantly advance through this engagement with Viavi, as the testing company’s software can be constantly leveraged to improve the quality of the OAI open source components, the alliance said.

With the addition of Viavi, OpenAirInterface aims to accelerate the development and adoption of open-source solutions for 5G networks, the alliance added.

“Viavi is excited to partner with OSA in advancing the state-of-the-art open source software for 5G/O-RAN/6G networks,” said Ian Wong, director of RF and wireless architecture at Viavi and co-chair of the test and integration focus group at the O-RAN Alliance.  “We strongly believe in the power of open source software in democratizing the research and development of next-generation wireless networks, enabling rapid innovation through experimentation and exploration, and have found in OSA the ideal partner in taking this to the next level, especially in the era of AI/ML, disaggregation, and openness in 6G,” Wong added.

Meanwhile, Raymond Knopp, president of OSA said that the alliance believes that the maturity of the OAI CU/DU stack and other software like the OAI FlexRIC will benefit greatly from continuous testing with the highest quality third-party test equipment from Viavi. “End-to-end wireless blueprints deployed in Open RAN labs need both open source components and quality testing gear to serve the 5G/6G needs of research and industry communities. This is where our partnership with Viavi is both timely and invaluable,” said Knopp.

The OSA was founded in 2014 by Eurocom, a research institute in France. The alliance manages and promotes OpenAirInterface (OAI) open-source software that offers 4G and 5G and core network stacks. The OAI software is used by many different organizations across the world for purposes of research and testing as well as for building blocks of systems for different 4G/5G use cases.

Other companies represented on the board of OSA are AMD, Canonical, Ericsson, Firecell, Fujitsu, InterDigital, NI, Nokia Bell Labs, NVIDIA, Orange, PAWR, Qualcomm, Sequans Communications and Vodafone.