Announcing The NITRO® Wireless Open RAN Test Suite 2024

Open RAN has been actively in development since 2018. The O-RAN ALLIANCE today includes 32 operator members and 278 vendor and academic contributors. In 2023, Open RAN was the subject of much debate about its viability, but two major developments in the second half of the year put concerns to rest. First, the O-RAN ALLIANCE resolved a lingering disagreement over the effectiveness of the open fronthaul specification to handle massive MIMO, paving the way for Open RAN to move decisively into field deployment. And sure enough, since then there have been numerous announcements of large-scale deployments from major operators around the globe.

Open RAN holds a lot of promise but is still some way from maturity. That promise includes broadening the supply base, reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) and opening up the network to the power of AI. New technology and architectures always need time to mature and prove themselves – especially in an industry that expects “five nines” reliability. And that means robust and rigorous testing.

For over 100 years, VIAVI Solutions has been directly involved in testing, assuring and securing the largest communications networks around the globe, and validating network products for all Tier-1 network equipment manufacturers. The company plays an active role in specifications development across 3GPP, O-RAN ALLIANCE and TIP. VIAVI has participated in every global Open RAN PlugFest, providing benchmarking and validation, and now offers the most comprehensive test suite in the industry, including lab validation, field deployment and service assurance.

The NITRO Wireless Open RAN Test Suite 2024 integrates proven conformance, interoperability, performance, and security test platforms for 3GPP and Open RAN with advanced technologies like cloud, artificial intelligence, automation, and digital twins. This comprehensive portfolio addresses the increasing complexity of networks by focusing on user experience, emulating real network data usage scenarios to provide essential intelligence for simplifying new technology deployment. It also tackles key challenges in network performance, quality of service (QoS), security, and energy consumption.

NITRO Wireless caters to a wide range of ecosystem participants, including equipment manufacturers, service providers, semiconductor companies, software developers, and system integrators, facilitating accelerated technology development through intelligent, intuitive, and automated performance validation at each stage.

Click here to obtain your own copy of the NITRO Wireless Open RAN Test Suite eBook.