VIAVI opens Open RAN lab-as-a-service test facility
VIAVI Solutions has opened its VIAVI Automated Lab-as-a-Service (VALOR) Open RAN testing facility in Chandler, Arizona.
Funded by a grant from the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund, VALOR offers a fully automated, open and impartial Lab-as-a-Service / Test-as-a-Service suite for Open RAN interoperability, performance and security.
With VALOR, the company seeks to address challenges to accelerate Open RAN adoption and encourage competition by providing access to test capabilities that – typically – have only been within the reach of large, established players. Now, with its on-demand "pay-as-you-go" approach to standardised testing, VALOR simplifies the development and deployment of Open RAN technologies, offering new entrants and start-ups a pathway to US certification without the need for significant investment in hardware and software.
VALOR brings together the NITRO Wireless Open RAN Test Suite, the VAMOS (VIAVI Automation Management and Orchestration System) unified framework for hybrid physical and cloud lab testing, and technologies from industry-leading partners. These include a joint O-RU testbed with Rohde & Schwarz for O-RU conformance and network energy saving tests, a large ETS-Lindgren RF anechoic chamber for Massive MIMO and beamforming over-the-air (OTA) performance testing, and 'golden' Open RAN-compliant O-CU, O-DU and O-RU reference technologies from Fujitsu, SOLiD and Capgemini.
Services include TM500 O-RU and O-DU and TeraVM O-CU subsystem conformance, performance and interoperability testing, and end-to-end testing with core emulation and TeraVM RAN scenario generator RIC/SMO tests covering conformance and performance validation and training of rApps and xApps. The service will ultimately offer over 500 test cases compliant with O-RAN WG4, WG5, WG11, TIFG and 3GPP specifications.
"The grand opening of the VALOR lab is an important step in democratising Open RAN testing for technology vendors by providing them with rapid access to comprehensive end-to-end solutions for everything from product development to performance stress tests," says Oleg Khaykin, President and Chief Executive Officer, VIAVI, in a press release.
