Bharti Airtel, China Telecom, KT, Singtel, SK telecom, Telefonica and Telstra have joined the Open RAN alliance.

Open Radio Access Networks will help operators lower cost, increase agility and accelerate 5G deployment.

AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DOCOMO and Orange, have co-founded the Open RAN alliance.

O-RAN Alliance is a carrier-led effort to drive embedded intelligence and openness in the radio access network of next generation wireless systems. But big telecom operators such as Verizon, Vodafone, SoftBank are not part of the alliance.

Roberto Kompany, senior analyst – Research at Analysys Mason, earlier said: “The Open RAN Alliance, created by mobile operators, consolidates two earlier initiatives and will help vendors to focus their efforts and to work together to drive down the cost of RAN deployment and encourage 5G investment.”

The O-RAN Alliance will drive intelligent, open software defined networks and virtualization elements that will help 5G networks achieve their full potential and unlock new experiences for consumers and businesses.

Andre Fuetsch, president of AT&T Labs, is the chair of the Board and Alex Jinsung Choi, SVP Strategy & Technology Innovation at Deutsche Telekom, is the operations officer of the Open RAN alliance.

Zhengmao Li, CTO of China Mobile; Andre Fuetsch, president, AT&T Labs; Alex Jinsung Choi, SVP Strategy & Technology Innovation at Deutsche Telekom; Hiroshi Nakamura, CTO of NTT DOCOMO; Emmanuel Lugagne Delpon, senior vice president, Orange Labs Networks; Abhay Savargaonkar, CTO of Bharti Airtel; Guiqing Liu, EVP of China Telecom; Dongmyun Lee, CTO of Korea Telecom; Mark Chong, group CTO at Singtel; Jinhyo Park, CTO of SK Telecom; Enrique Blanco, group CTIO of Telefonica; and Hakan Eriksson, CTO of Telstra, have attended the first board meeting of Open RAN alliance in Shanghai.