Preparing for the $53 Million NOFO 4 Funding for Secure, AI-Native RAN

NTIA recently opened the fourth Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund (NOFO 4) with up to $53 million for secure, AI-native RAN architectures. It’s an exciting opportunity, and a complex one to navigate alone.

VIAVI partners with you to meet that complexity, strengthening your proposal and moving your innovation to commercialization.

A Foundation NTIA Already Trusts

VIAVI is the only test and measurement company to receive NTIA Innovation Fund Round 1 (NOFO 1) funding, the award that built the VIAVI Automated Lab-as-a-Service for Open RAN (VALOR™) Lab. In collaboration with VIAVI, your NOFO 4 submission inherits that credibility.

Our work inside 3GPP, O-RAN ALLIANCE, OCUDU, the AI-RAN Alliance, and TIP ensures what we validate aligns with NTIA expectations.

VALOR leverages our industry credibility and leadership position to strengthen your proposal by:

• Validating your secure AI-native compute fabric against real lab and field conditions.
• Demonstrating performance with trusted data a reviewer can act on.
• Building the business case your proposal needs, grounded in evidence.
• Embedding security by design from the first architecture decision.
• Embedding observability for Section 4.2, 4.3, and 4.5 compliance.

VALOR provides the necessary third party test for  your architecture across the testing disciplines that matter to a NOFO 4 reviewer:

• 5G RAN performance testing from the lab to a live network.
• End-to-end testing of AI-driven, open, and cloud-native RAN architectures, across test, security, and applications.
• Channel emulation across the full lab-to-field path.
• Layer 4 through Layer 7 performance, security policy, and edge inferencing validation.
• AI-RAN architecture validation before deployment, including digital twin modeling and integrated sensing and communication.
• Interference identification and location in live 5G networks.
• Pre-deployment spectrum and channel characterization, paired with fiber monitoring and quantum-safe security for future-proof architectures.
• Operational-cost and monetization validation, the performance data that substantiates cost savings, new revenue streams, and third-party service enablement.

A Trusted Partner Across the Full Lifecycle

A NOFO 4 award is just the beginning. Built on decades of technical expertise and industry collaboration, VIAVI is your trusted partner throughout the entire product lifecycle.

VIAVI helps you prove the architecture before you build it and validate both technical and commercial performance before you deploy it, with UE traffic simulation, core emulation, digital twin modeling, and AI-driven automation and orchestration.

Our field test, edge test, and monitoring solutions confirm your live network performs reliably.

To ensure smooth operation and continuous improvements after deployment, VIAVI offers network intelligence, monitoring, and autonomous network operations.

Get In Touch

Applications close September 9 and we welcome the opportunity to help advance your NOFO 4 strategy.

For more on how we can help with your proposal, read the brochure or email valor@viavisolutions.com

VALOR™ is funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund (PWSCIF).