Nokia has opened its first Open RAN (O-RAN) Collaboration and Testing Center at its offices in Dallas, Texas.

The Open RAN center is designed to support the development of partnerships among O-RAN vendors that will help with the verification, introduction, and launch of O-RAN compliant solutions to market.

In particular, vendors will be able to execute Interoperability Tests (IOT) and end-to-end testing for O-RU/O-DU Open Fronthaul as well as xAPP testing for Nokia’s near-real-time RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC).

Nokia plans to open similar facilities at its other global offices around the world in the future, Pasi Toivanen, Head of Edge Cloud at Nokia, said.

The Nokia O-RAN Collaboration and Testing Center provides a venue to collaborate as well as validate different areas such as control, user, management, and synchronization plane compliance with O-RAN Alliance specifications.

The short-term focus is on Open Fronthaul and near-real-time RIC expanding to other O-RAN interfaces in the near future.

The Nokia O-RAN Collaboration and Testing Center is designed to execute IOT and end-to-end testing for O-RU/O-DU Open Fronthaul and xAPP testing for the near-real-time RIC.