This marks the first time an O-RAN Badge or Certificate has been awarded at a European OTIC. This is a significant step forward for O-RAN in Europe and for the i14y Lab, where the tests were performed. For the occasion we had invited a few guests, among them Alex Choi, Chair of the O-RAN Alliance and Harald Berninghaus from the German Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport, as well as members from Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and Vodafone Germany who joined us on-site and remotely. We had the chance to hear a few statements from them as well as from other attendants:
O-RAN Badge and Certificate awarded by European OTIC in Berlin powered by i14y Lab
On April 10th we had a little celebration at the i14y Lab to mark the handover of the O-RAN certificate of conformance to VVDN for their VVDN Low Power O-RU (4T4R 1W) and the O-RAN End-to-End (E2E) Badge to consortium partner Capgemini Engineering for their O-DU/O-CU. The tests according to the O-RAN Conformance Test Specification 9.0 and O-RAN End-to-end Test Specification v4.0 were successfully concluded in March 2024 at the i14y Lab, powering the European OTIC in Berlin.
Significance for Accelerating Time to Market
“This is the first certification and badging outside of the East – I like to call it Europe’s “zero to one” moment. So im expecting that the i14y lab will issue more and more certifcations and badges in the future and really continue to take the initiative, take the lead, in supporting the ecosystem”
- Alex Choi, O-RAN ALLIANCE Chair
"This certification will help the end user to take their product to the market by not reinventing or redoing the same test cases that we have done. And of course, VVDN as an ODM company, it helps the OEM to gain confidence in the products, on the IPs that we are having, and that will help them to take the device and manufacture it and give it to the customers. These certifications and badges suggest to the customer that a product is a reliable product and it can be taken to mass production or it can be used in the real world deployments."
- Vineeth Sankarakutty, VVDN
"One of the important purposes of Open RAN is to achieve exchangeability of modules and components. And in order to support that, we utilize certificates and badges. So the idea is that operators and other users of Open RAN components can trust the conformance tests and the certificates and badges, and just take modules and combine it with other modules that have a certificate as well."
- Andreas Gladisch, i14y Lab Consortium Lead
Conclusion
Badging and certification will serve as essential enablers towards the success of open RAN, accelerating time to market and unlocking the full potential of disaggregated network architectures. By fostering interoperability, standardization, and quality assurance, these mechanisms empower operators with greater agility, flexibility, and innovation.
As the telecommunications industry continues to embrace the principles of openness and disaggregation, we believe the role of badging and certification will remain paramount in driving forward the evolution of network infrastructure.
At i14y Lab we are happy to contribute to this tangible milestone in elevating the open RAN community, which with April 25 is now also mentioned over at O-RAN ALLIANCE.
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