Building trust through lab collaboration

Trust is essential when shifting towards something new like Open RAN. That is true for operators and vendors alike.

For operators, it is of course very important, as it touches on one of their major concerns regarding Open RAN deployment – integrating it into their existing networks – as well as their need for security, service levels, and the ability to easily configure.

But it is even more important for new and smaller vendors and generally the smaller players in the market. Because for them, it cuts both ways. Of course, operators need to assess the trustworthiness of new players – so vendors must gain their trust. But given the even more limited resources of smaller players, they need to have trust in the market to even be willing to operate in it. So here trust is essential for delivering on Open RAN’s core promise of greater vendor diversity.

Trust and how to build it was a topic discussed on the panel “Policy collaboration - From test to deployment, how can policy resources help?”, which had Brian Larkin (NTIA), Lauriston Hardin (NTIA), and Kan Chang (Lions Technology).

One way to create trust through policy is to incentivize smaller players, the panel stated. Yet, it also became clear during the discussions, that both consistent and repeatable testing as well as the ability to share resources in a network of collaborating labs can be fundamental to building trust, as it enables those smaller players to enter the market affordably and with the confidence that operators can be justified to trust them with their networks.

Delivering such testing with a network of collaborating labs requires an approach that takes the business perspective of testing and certification into account. That includes a balanced and coordinated funding of labs to create a sustainable ecosystem with business cases the ecosystem can build on – both labs and the suppliers.

Benefits on all sides need to be clear for the Open RAN market and ecosystem to work. Open RAN is not (just) a technology, but an idea that promises resilience, variety, and innovation. As any idea, to fulfill its promises it requires a business case that is beneficial for all players. Consistent and repeatable testing based on the needs of the operators, we believe, is a cornerstone to building this business case.