KT Corporation, Fujitsu and NTT DoCoMo are making progress in their mission to promote open Radio Access Network (RAN) technology in South Korea.
KT and Fujitsu said they completed a test connection as part of their open fronthaul interoperability trials. It comes as KT and Fujitsu completed a verification facility at the KT Research and Development Center in Seoul. The companies leveraged Fujitsu’s open RAN based-5G base station equipment for a test call during interoperability trials.
The tests involved verification of the interoperability between the base station controllers – central unit (CU) and distributed unit (DU) of Fujitsu's 5G base station equipment and an unnamed medium-sized vendor's radio unit, as well as end-to-end communication tests.
Traditionally, operators are able to connect calls if the CU and DU are provided by the same provider. With open specifications, carriers can use the CU and DU from different vendors, which is a big step forward in their intent to open up the network to a mix and match type of system.
The companies reported that they successfully verified equipment compliant with the specification developed by the O-RAN Alliance.
RELATED: NTT DoCoMo achieves multi-vendor base station interoperability
KT, NTT DoCoMo, and Fujitsu agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), effective January 6, centering on the introduction of software-defined virtualized RAN (vRAN) and RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) as part of the 5G Open RAN Ecosystem, a formal initiative backed by the companies.
In the MoU, the operators and Fujitsu agreed to cooperate toward further activities including the construction of an O-RAN test facility and multi-vendor interoperability testing in Korea. They also plan to target the global expansion of open RAN.
According to a press release, KT is considering the introduction of multi-vendor Open RAN to reduce equipment procurement and construction costs and to achieve flexible network construction capabilities.
For the testing facility, KT adopted Fujitsu's 5G base stations, which are described as the world's first O-RAN compliant base stations adopted for commercial service by NTT DoCoMo.